Being of Two Minds
by cosmofur
Summary: Red Wood was just a rustic craftspony making magic music boxes, there was nothing special about him or his son. So why was a crazed cult after them? Their mad oracle was talking about some weird 'Visitor'. The Princesses seemed to also know about this insanity, but they were too far to help him. Because the Cultists only wanted Red Wood's body. Red Wood himself they want evicted.
1. Chapter 1

Coltsdale City was not a real city, it barely qualified as a small town. It only had about fifty families, half being descendants of the original unicorn family herd that had founded the town, and the other half being the descendants of wandering vagabonds that had settled in and around the area. Other than the handful of shopkeepers who ran their businesses out of their front parlors or barns, there was only one public building in the whole town. It served as town hall, post office, general store and when the Mayor felt like it, a casual salt bar.

Yet despite being small, the town had a rich tradition and some real wealth. It never grew big enough to justify a full time weather team but they were lucky enough to be on the weather corridor the pegasi used between Manehatten and Fillydelpha, which means they could count on the dregs of left over clouds and sunshine, but only after the two larger cities had been served. This irregular weather proved to be a blessing, competition made surrounding forest grow in more wild ways as the trees had to fight for light and rain, at least compared to the wood from more placid and regular tended forests.

Hardwoods cut from the forests around Coltsdale, has exotic grain patterns and unusual character in their bent and twisted branches. Most of the craftsponies in the town worked on making hoofmade decorative wood panels, curio cabinets, music boxes and other small wooden trinkets, frequently with minor unicorn magic enchantments to enhance their function. Merchant ponies from as far away as Baltermare and Los Pegasus would pay high prices and pull heavy carts over dirt roads for days to acquire Coltsdale's finest.

Red Wood was a unicorn, that had lived his entire line in Coltsdale, gone to school in its one room school house, and learned to carve wood under the hooves of his parents guidance. Coltdale was small and isolated town, but Red Wood didn't have many reasons to complain, he loved the woods with its less than perfect weather and complex textured feel. He fell in love both with the forest, and in the forest. For here he found his soulmate, a fellow unicorn named Gentle Breeze. Red Wood had always known Gentle Breeze, as the filly next door. In the shade of the twisted trees they played as colt and filly. First tag and hide and seek which over time grew into more intimate, if still innocent games.

Red Wood was not a very worldly or well traveled pony, not that he was a completly unschooled, having gotten a two year degree for magical engineering from the University of Fillydelphia. That stint at school had been the longest time away from Coltsdale, and pretty much the beginning and the end of his world travels.

Soon after Red Wood got his degree, he opened his own music box workshop, something he had always wanted to do since he got his cutimark, which was of a silver windup key set in a yellow circle to contrast with his gray coat and red mane. Once he started making enough bits to support himself, to absolutely noponies surprise, Red Wood asked for Gentle Breeze's in hoof in marriage.

They along with two thirds of the Coltsdale's residents, in a classic barn raising, setup a small one room house, along the edge of town against the forest. Nominally it was to make it easier for Red Wood to gather wood for his hoofcrafted music boxes, but it also gave the new couple a little more privacy which, small towns being what they were, was a valuable commodity. The next three and a half years flew by, easily the best years of their lives. Red Wood's reputation and skill with music boxes and other windup toys grew, and steady orders kept filled a remote city bank account with bits, but they hardly ever withdrew money from it, having few needs.

Then around the midpoint of their third year of marriage, the town buzzed with rumors. For three months Gentle Breeze kept her secret, but then Doctor Kind Buck came back from a trip to the city with lab results. News of the results triggered a town wide party. (No, no pink ponies showed up at this party, but rumor says that a certain future baker assistant (currently still a very young filly) many miles away suddenly gave a hoofs up and wink to the fourth wall when the Coltsdale baby shower was at its peak.)

With Gentle Breeze's assent, Red Wood used his formidable wood craft skills to add a new extension to their small home. No cheap machine saw milled boards or mail order door knobs, he hand crafted each stick beam and wall panel himself. Because this was for Gentle Breeze's and his nursery, she was pregnant with foal and nothing but the best would be good enough.

It was such a wonderful time for them, so of course tragedy had to find them, as if all good times had to be balanced out on some invisible tally board with evil ones.

Gentle Breeze was nearing her due date, but insisted that Red Wood go to work, she jokingly told him that he was more trouble than help and was getting under her hoofs besides she still had at least two more weeks to go. It was a major mistake, because sometime soon after Red Wood left to hunt the woods for exotic branches, Gentle Breeze's water broke and something went terribly terribly wrong.

That afternoon Red Wood came back to his loving home, to find a nightmare.

His next door neighbor, was crying uncontrollably unable to put words to what she had found, handed Red Wood a newborn colt, only hours old. He took the child into numb hoofs, because there was red iron smelling liquid everywhere. Blood on the floor, on the ground, in a trail that led into the woods, and Gentle Breeze was nowhere. They didn't even have a body to bury. Red Wood became a father and a widower on the same hour.


	2. Chapter 2

Gentle Breeze was gone. Red Wood just kept thinking over and over to himself "Where is she? Where is she?" The long day seemed to stretch forever. All he could see was the red splashes. All he could smell was the iron rust smell of blood. There was no body, nothing to hold onto. He wandered from room to room, then from inside to out to the edge of the forest, seeing nothing, feeling too much and too little. Other ponies were there, saying things to him that went unheeded, like ghosts in a fog. At one point a neighbor mare took his new born son from him to nursed, Red Wood hardly noticed.

The town sheriff and then later royal guards had come to inspect the scene. The evidence seemed to show that Gentle Breeze had given birth in the bedroom, but something attacked the house, perhaps attracted by the smell of the birth fluids, claw marks seemed to indicate it was a bear or perhaps an unusually large timber wolf, but none of the marks were clear enough to tell what. Gentle Breeze had apparently just enough time to hide the newborn colt in a dresser draw, before in her weakened state she was dragged away. There was too many bloody red puddles to have any hope she survived the attack.

As the sheriff did his initial investigation, Red Wood just followed the law pony around his house holding the newborn colt in his hoofs, unable to process what he was seeing. There was something more to this than a simple animal attack, Red Wood knew the sheriff and guards had found something that shook them up, but when he demanded to be shown what it was, they wouldn't let him see it. The sheriff refused to look Red Wood in the eye, and with dreadful numbness he realized it must have been evidence of Gentle Breezes final moments, and they were doing him a favor shielding him from the horrid details. He never learned exactly what it was but they took the evidence away to Canterlot in an armored wagon.

A day later Red Wood got a personal letter from Princess Celestia offering her consolations. The princess seemed to be taking personal interest in what the press was calling the 'Coltsdale tragedy' At the royal courts expense, a company of guards were assigned to the town for the rest of the year. For months guards patrolled the area, but there were no more attacks.

The fire that burned in Red Wood's heart sputtered and nearly failed that night. Only a spark of life reminded, almost all his joy was sucked away from him, almost all, but he had a son now, and coldly he knew his responsibilities and took them seriously. There was hardly any laughter and light in their little house now and Red Wood found himself crying himself to sleep more often than his little foal.

His son had a red brown coat with a green mane, and like all ponies could stand and walk right away. He seemed unusually sturdy and stable right from the beginning. He reminded Red Wood of Gentle Breeze's favorite tree, so after the traditional eighteen days of mourning he was named Banyan.

When Red Woods looked at the little colt he saw Gentle Breeze's purple blue eyes and slowly, ever so slowly, that little spark of life that remained in his heart was fanned. Red Woods would rarely laugh or even smile, but Banyan started doing enough laughing for both of them.

It wasn't the life he had wanted, he so wanted his Gentle Breeze back. For Banyan's first several years, small things like first lost baby tooth, first time drinking an oat shake, first day of preschool were tainted with melancholy.

They always celebrated Banyan's birthdays a week early, because Red Wood didn't think he could hold a happy birthday party on the same anniversary as Gentle Breeze's lose. On his fifth one Banyan was starting to become more aware of the world around him, and asked Red Wood. "Daddy? Why are you crying?" when the young colt caught Red Wood dripping tears on to his birthday cake as he used his horn to light the candles.

Speechless Red Wood couldn't answer Banyan, it was then he realized his own sadness if left uncontrolled would hurt his son and it wasn't fair to Banyan and Gentle Breeze's memory. It took time, not months, but years passed and Banyan was such a happy foal that Red Wood's frozen heart started soften and to once again he could see there were good things to look forward to.

Red Woods had to work very hard as a single parent to take care of Banyan, but in the greater scheme of things, it was Banyan who took care of Red Wood's broken heart.

Banyan and Red Wood continued to live in the quiet cottage, the pale of death slowly faded, and somehow they just continued. After a year or so, Red Wood even tried dating some of the local mares, some of them already long time friends and wet nurses for Banyan. While nothing romantic developed, Banyan gained a number of 'aunts' who made sure the little colt was well fed, got plenty of hugs and bedtime stories.

Most influential was Bottle Gentian, a blue coated earth pony, who seemed to practically live with the two bachelor colts. She had been one of the first mares Red Wood had tried to date, and they got along with quite well, they even went to bed together on their third date. And that night, they just … slept. After a few more failed dates, they agreed that they would 'just be friends' which in most cases mean they would go their separate ways, but in this case they truly became close if platonic friends.

Time passed, not swiftly, for Red Wood, the main measure was not the days or months, but rather inches and baby teeth as Banyan grew, from foal into a preteen colt. Indeed hardly anything changed in Red Wood's life until Banyan reached his tenth birthday.

Six days after the traditional informal party, and the evening before his Banyan's real birth-date, Red Wood received an unexpected letter. The Mayor brought it over late in the afternoon puffing a bit having galloped the short distance from the town hall.

"Red!" the Mayor puffed, "urgent letter for you! It came directly from Canterlot, came by dragon fire directly to my office!" He handed over the envelope, which was both sealed with wax and had an 'urgent' red ribbon. "It has to be from the Princess!" Mayor added.

Looking at the envelope, Red Wood had no idea what to expect, he had only once before gotten a royal letter, and that was the consolation letter from Celestia all those years ago. Carefully he broke the seal and read over the short note, he read it twice, trying to make sense of it.

All the note said was,

To our dear subject Red Wood of Coltsdale. We have long thought the danger your family faced years ago had passed, but new evidence has come to light. We are sending a flight of Pegasus guards to escort you and your family to Canterlot. They should arrive at your location tomorrow, please be ready to depart with them. We will also have audience with you tonight to explain the danger personally.

The note wasn't signed, but the royal seal on the letter left no doubt about the letter's origin.

There was no further explanation about what the princess wanted to meet about in the letter and no mention of either time or place for the meeting. He quickly looked out the window, half expecting the Princess to come flying down any moment. After about 2 minutes of genuflecting to nothing, he chuckled to himself, clearly the Princess didn't know exactly when she would arrive and had told him to be prepared for her for whenever she came.

For the rest of the afternoon, Red Wood puttered around in his workshop, stopping to look out the window every few minutes, but there was no sign of anyone coming. Stopping only to make sure Banyon got to bed on time.

The colt dutifully complained he was too old to be tucked in but this had become just another part of their nightly ritual, and Red Wood ignored the complaint as he kissed the colt on his forehead and tucked his Daring Do doll, ahem, action figure next to Banyan.

Red Wood returned to sitting on the porch and watched the darkening sky, waiting for any sign of the princesses. For a while the Mayor stayed with him, but as it evening fell, he excused himself with a promise to come by in the morning to help greet the guards. As the lights of the town one by one blinked off as ponies went to bed, Red Wood realized there just wasn't any point to waiting any more, they weren't coming, at least not this night.

He cleaned up the dishes from dinner then headed to bed, sliding into 'his' side of the large bed, even after ten years, he never slept in the middle, or Celestia forbid, 'her' side of the bed. Red Wood didn't even think about it anymore, it was just long time habit. His head hit the pillow and almost immediately he started to dream.

It was an odd dreams, not really a nightmare but something was clearly off like seeing through a camera held at odd angle. He was dreaming of being in bed, and strangely Gentle Breeze was laying next to him. Strange, because after the first few years, dreams of Gentle Breeze had become painfully rare. She was just laying there, quietly sleeping next to him, they way she used to. He wanted to reach out, touch her, like they used to. No, not to make out, or for sex, no just to hold her. But he couldn't move. All he could do was watch her breath.

Then she shifted, turning towards him, her eyes were closed and she had a half smile on her muzzle, she looked happy. Red Wood starting to smile back at her, then he realized something was wrong. Her horn, it wasn't there! There was a flat smooth stub in its place. Something had cut off her horn, not broken off, no it clearly had been cut.

Red Wood felt like he was going to throw up. Horns were sensitive, the pain alone from breaking their horn had killed more than one unicorn. Here was his Gentle Breeze seemingly happy but with that horrible scare! Red Wood pulled away, slipping off the dream bed and suddenly falling.

As he fell away, Gentle Breeze opened her eyes and jumped at him, in that brief second she looked dangerous, more like a predator than a pony.

Then her expression changed, her hide changed to a dark blue, she suddenly had her horn back, along with a pair of … wings?


	3. Chapter 3

Red Wood kept falling in his dream, it had started with him falling from his dream bed, but now it was as if there was no floor to hit. Above him his bed was stretching away from him against a field of empty dark. Terror locked his mind, he couldn't even think. A monster had replaced his Gentle Breeze, and it was watching him fall away. The dark blue Alicorn peered over the bedside at Red Wood with a cool concerned expression, before flaring her wings and flying after the falling unicorn. Red Wood flailed, kicked, bucked and twisted, but he couldn't do anything to stop the approaching monster. His mind unhinged could only manage one shaking thought, "Nightmare Moon!"

In a moment she had caught him, as her hoofs encircled his barrow, he suddenly stopped falling. It wasn't like he had landed, no, the transition from falling, to standing on solid ground was instantaneous and jarring. Both Red Wood and the Alicorn in front of him was standing on a dark dimly lit plane of black grass, the full moon shining brightly over the Alicorn's shoulder. Red Wood swayed as he regained his balance, then drawn by an instinct deep in the hearts of all ponies, he fell to the ground, covering his head and shaking in respectful fear.

For a second the Alicorn seemed taken aback, then with a roll of her eyes and an angry stomp of her hoofs she spoke in a loud and frustrated tone. "Oh come on!" then taking a calming breath she continued in a quieter voice, "Come my faithful subject, thy fear is unfounded, We have been free of the evil taint of Nightmare Moon for two years now, certainly your home village is not so isolated as to have not heard of our return."

Red Wood looked up, and saw the stern look on the Princesses face slowly morph into a shy smile. "Princess … Luna?" he asked in a shaky voice.

"Yes indeed our good gentile colt. It is we ahh?, yes, I mean I, excused me. I fall back to the old ways of royal speech when upset. Come stand with me, I do not wish to scare you out of this dream before we can converse."

It took a moment for Red Wood to find his legs but then slowly stood, uncertain how a simple craftpony as himself should talk to a princess. "Dream" he asked, "This is a dream?"

Luna nodded with a bit of a proud smile, "Yes, we are in the space of dreams now, it is, or was, one of my special talents, a right and privilege of my office, to visit other ponies in their dreams to aid and guide them. It was a skill I used frequently before my fall to evil, lost then and now I'm slowly recovering the art. I used to use this skill to seek out and aid fillies and colts troubled by nightmares and will do so again when my power waxes, but for tonight I'm using this skill to reach out just to you."

"But why?" Red Wood asked, "What is going on, and why me?"

Luna sighed, "I had not yet returned when the events known as the 'Coltsdale tragedy' occurred. New information has brought this sad event back to the attention of the court and my sister has informed me of all they she had learned from the initial investigation. The terrible things that happened that night, where but the surface effects of a much deeper evil, one that my sister has attempted to suppress knowledge of."

"Suppress? I don't understand. Was the monster that …" Red Woods voice failed him.

"We have limited time, I've asked the Pegasus guards to fly through the night to reach you, and they should arrive in about three hours. You will need to awaken soon and pack." Luna looked side to side as if concerned she said something wrong.

"Please I know there were things hidden from me ten year ago, you have to tell me the truth, I have to know!" Red Wood begged.

Luna sighed, "I can't tell you everything, we wouldn't have time, even if I had all night. No, but understand this, the beast that attacked your home, was but the pet of a cult, a group dedicated only to their own betterment and glorification. They call themselves the Followers of the Stone Heart, my sister and I have dealt with them before, a most unpleasant group that has caused much evil though the land for more than a thousand years."

Red Wood angrily asked, "Why would some random cult attack my family? We have nothing they could want! If they've been around so long, why haven't you princesses stopped them?"

Luna shook her head, her star filled mane sparking with streaking meteors in her anger. "No this cult is different than other evils we have fought. Evils like King Sombra and Discord are single targets, you can fight them, beat them, but this cult is based around a book, a book that has been copied many times and hides in plain sight under different titles. We stop a group of cultists in one place and time, then the evil just re-sprouts elsewhere. Its a battle we will probably never truly win, we can only mitigate, suppress and defend ourselves when they resurface and show their true nature."

Red Wood couldn't understand this, "A Book? A book killed my wife!"

"Books can have greater power than a army. This book is partly a spell book, but its mostly a treaty on philosophy. The original authors probably didn't mean any evil, but their ideas were seductive, sounded to the unlearned as reasonable and are full of heartfelt anger and terrible beauty. Ponies who read this book and fall victim to its seduction, find in its pages justification for anger, pettiness, greed and find excuses to engage in the most horrendous crimes against their fellow ponies. In its pages are the most dangerous ideas about property, slavery and the 'proper place' for the inferior tribes."

"What ponies would believe that! That is just evil!"

"Too many ponies can fall into that trap, you think the great Windigo war of the classical age was the only times the three tribes have fought? Harmony between the tribes is a continuous struggle. To make it worse, the book also contains some of the most dangerous and blackest magic spells, and not all of them are limited to unicorns. It describes potions and magic tokens that all three tribes can use. It was one of these spells that led them to your house. We think, we hope, in error but that is cold comfort."

Red Wood just stood there, some cult had killed his wife? He could barely comprehend that, but was Luna saying they did it, BY MISTAKE! It was too much to take, his anger was boiling in ways that threatened to knock him out of this dream, or nightmare.

Luna sighed, "We're not sure, only a few days ago, my sister decided to forward the remains that had been recovered to her student, Twilight Sparkle, in hope her growing magic skills would find a new insight on what carvings meant."

Red Wood had no idea what Luna was talking about, "Carvings? What carvings?" He started to pace in a circle around the Alicorn, unable to keep his body still any longer.

"Did you not see them, they were etched deep into Gentle Breeze's horn, I thought you…"

"HORN!" Red Wood interrupted the Night Princess. "They found her Horn?! They never said what they found. Was she still alive when it was, oh goddesses! Please did they cut it off why she was able to feel it!" Even imagining the pain of his precious Gentle Breeze made him fall to his hunches shivering. To a unicorn, their horn was so much a part of them, you could gouge out their eyes, rip off their limbs, stab them a hundred times, and that all would be less painful than having their horn cut off. It was too much to think about, Red Wood was back on the ground, hoofs over his head shivering.

Luna seemed surprised "You didn't know? I so sorry! I did not mean to be the bearer of such news." Then Luna took a breath, she had gone this far, she owed it to Red Wood to finish. "Twilight Sparkle was able to detect the remains of a series of divination spells, some cast before they had the horn, and other cast with it. The spells seem to have revealed to the cult a danger to them, one that has to do with you or your family. They apparently attacked your wife both to secure her horn to clarify the spell, and to remove the perceived threat. In other words, the cult attacked your house because they were paranoid about threat they didn't even understand. But such is a hallmark of this cult, they are violent and dangerous."

"It been ten years, why are you warning me now?"

"Ten years ago, my sister was still the sole ruler of the land and her resources where thin, when there were no further attacks near Coltsdale she judged that the danger had passed. It was only chance that she asked her student to review the old evidence. Twilight Sparkle is very skilled in her specialty, in some ways she exceeds my sister and I in this matter, she of course would not stoop as low as the cultists and attempt to recast such an evil spell, but she had her own powers to draw on. Twilight Sparkle cast her own version of the divination spell, and …" Luna sudden stopped talking, she looked over her shoulder at the dreamscapes full moon. Another light started glowing from the adjacent horizon. Rapidly an orange yellow globe rose up and split the sky, half day and half night.

"Sister?" Luna asked the light, clearly confused.

Red Wood eyes followed Luna's to stare at the dreamscape sun, out the light flew Celestia. The ageless Alicorn panted as if she had raced from a great distance. "Luna! Red Wood! You have to wake now! Twilight and I triangulated the power surge, our first measurement was wrong! They aren't fifty miles outside of Coltsdale as we believed, they are already across the border. There's no way the guards will arrive in time! Red Wood wake and flee! wake and flee for your life!"


	4. Chapter 4

Red Wood stood in half morning lit, and half midnight dark dreamscape. The two Princesses, the rulers of his nation had just ordered him to wake up, to flee for his life, and he had not the slightest idea on how to do so. He snorted, whinnied and stamped the dream grass in frustration, while the two Alicorns stared blankly at him.

"I don't know how!" he eventually cried. "This dream is too real!"

Luna looked sympathetic, "Forgive me, you are in the deepest stage of sleep where your spirit is most detached from your body. Even I know of no easy way to draw you out from within this dream, someone or something in the outside world could wake you with a touch or loud noise, but we have no power to do so trapped within here."

Celestia looked stricken, "We can not wait for that, the only movement our spell detected in Coltsdale is the cultists. If you wait for them to wake you, then it be would better not to wake at all!"

Luna turned to Celestia and with a worried look, "My sister, I know of a spell that may work but you have banned it as dark magic."

Celestia looked confused for a moment, "The sleeping servant?"

Luna nodded.

"Do it." Celestia ordered.

Luna turned back to Red Wood, "Listen now, the spell I'm going to cast is based on a banned mind control spell. Normally it would allow the caster to take control of another Ponies body, suppressing the host's mind in a dreamless sleep. Your body would be like a puppet in the casters control. I will transfer the control to you, but it will be as if your own body was a puppet on strings. You will be able control it, but your spirit will be outside of your mortal form until the spell comes to its natural conclusion."

Red Wood nodded, "Understood your highness." He stood up, his legs shaking, fear growing in his belly. "Please, do it, otherwise my son will be helpless."

Luna started to concentrate, her horn glowing blue, after a moment, she gasped "Aid me sister! This spell was not designed to be cast from within the dreamrealm! I feel it slipping out of my control!"

Celesta lit up her own horn and it's gold yellow light merged with her fellow alicorn's magic. The glow from their mixed spells started to pulse. Red Wood had to turn his head away as the light grew too bright to look at.

In moments he no longer could see the dreamscape, it was all blank white noise, he couldn't even see or feel his own body. Even when he tried to touch himself with his hoofs, he felt nothing. Red Wood started to scream in panic, but even that was just in his mind, he had no mouth, no lungs, no voice.

For a long time he felt suspended like this, when slowly a dot of darkness resolved itself into his vision. It wasn't even clear to Red Wood if the dot was in front of him of to the side, it was just the only thing in the sea of white and trying to turn his head or roll his eyes didn't have any effect on how he saw it.

Slowly the dot grew into a sphere, taking up more and more of his vision. After some seconds? Minutes? Hours? Red Wood seem to pass through the surface of the sphere, and he could for the first time really see its contents.

It was his bedroom, Red Wood seemed to be floating about two lengths over his bed, looking down at his own body. Along with clear vision, sound reappeared and he could hear himself snoring. He for a disoriented moment was surprised, he never heard his own snoring before and was it was so loud. "Banyan right, it is like an express train." He thought to himself.

Luna's voice echoed faintly in Red Woods mind, "My spell is at it's limit, you need to take control of your body now, use your will to make it move. It will remain in this state for at least an hour, so be caref…" Luna's voice suddenly faded, lost as the sounds of the waking world became louder and more real than the memories of the dreamscape.

Unfortunately the sound which masked the Princesses last words, terrified Red Wood, because it was the sound of breaking glass. Someone was breaking into his house. The same instance he heard a cry of alarm, a cry came from Banyan's room.

Red Wood didn't spend even an instant trying to feel out how the control spell worked, by gut instinct he wrenched his body out of bed. It hung below his vision like a puppet on strings.

Left foreleg, right rear, right foreleg, left rear, in jerky by speedy motions he made his sleeping form move. Nothing was easy, yet somehow he was keeping his balance and moved.

He banged his shins against every object in his way, but didn't feel anything, nor did his body show any signs of waking. He tried to open his bedroom door with his horn, but what ever body-less state he was in, he couldn't channel his magic. Not wanting to waste even a moment, he threw his body against the door and smashed it open. Splinters flew as the door broke into pieces.

Someone yelled, it wasn't his son, there had been someone behind the door and now that someone was flattened on the floor as the door fell outward. For extra measure Red Wood made his body hop hard on the flattened door, hearing a satisfactory "Ufff!" from the intruder. He then slammed his fore hoof on the handle nob of his sons bedroom door. From his airy perch he could see Banyan huddled in the corner of his room, scared but so far unharmed and alone.

Red Wood wasn't sure of his puppetry skills to try to make his body talk, but he did have some control of the mouth and neck, so he grabbed Banyan by his pajamas and tossed the screaming child onto his back. Two kicks of his fore-hoofs and Banyan's window was smashed out, one jump and both of them were out of the house.

Red Wood looked side to side. His vision though wouldn't extend more than a small lit bubble centered around his body, beyond ten body lengths and everything was gray. He was turned around and not sure which way to go. He used what few landmarks he could make out to direct his body towards the center of town, but had gone only a few strides when a bunch of torch welding ponies resolved at the edge of his vision.

He didn't recognize any of these strange ponies, and he knew everypony in Coltsdale. It had to be the cultists, there was no way he could run around them. Cries of alarm told him that he had been spotted. He spun around and galloped in earnest into the woods.

Twigs branches cut and tore at him, but Red Wood didn't feel the blows, he just knew he had to get space between his son and these cult ponies. He broke through a hedge row of bushes and into a clearing he knew about, about a quarter mile into the woods. There he let Banyan down and pantomimed for the small pony to hide in the nearby bushes. Banyan was crying and Red Wood couldn't even offer him words of comfort. He nuzzled the little colt and then when he was sure the youngster was hidden, he turned back the way he came.

He had come up with a half formed plan to allow the pursuing ponies to see him and then lead them away, away from Banyan and perhaps back to town where there were other ponies to help. So stood pawing the ground, ready to charge, when new movement caught his attention.

Coming from off the side of the clearing, something slowly stepped into his vision. It was not the pursuing ponies, no it was a monster. The thing was twice the size of pony, covered in barbed scales like a horny lizard with a neck that stretched snake like from its squared shoulders, more wolf shaped than lizard, but most noticeable blood like sweat poured off the creature in rivulets that pooled on the ground as it slowed to approach towards Red Wood.

It was an Inkanyamba, Red Wood recognized the monster from storybooks. It must have come from southern jungles, where they would use the death smell of their bloody red sweat to drive prey forward, into dead falls or the jaws of waiting pack-mates. It didn't belong here, the cult must be using it as some sort of attack dog.

It amazed Red Wood how cold his emotions where, he expected to be terrified, but all he felt was hate. This was the monster that had killed his love. He didn't have his magic, but the Princesses spell meant he couldn't feel any pain, there was nothing that was going to hold him back, keep him from destroying this thing, this abomination. He reared up then pointed his horn straight at the creature and then snorting in anger, he charged.


	5. Chapter 5

Red Wood charged, his body was his only weapon, and he could move it like a rag doll or a club, tossing it at the monster he faced. He seemed to have caught the Inkanyamba by surprise. The bloody lizard horse expected its prey to flee, not fight. For a few dumbfounded seconds it stood there, trying to look menacing, howling and hissing.

If Red Wood had really been in his body properly and not just floating above it, there was no way he could have kept up his courage. The Inkanyamba was the combination of every instinct that should have made a pony flee in terror, snakes, blood, wolf and predator. But with Red Wood senses dulled, his mind disoriented, and no sense of smell, the terror magic of the Inkanyamba had no power over him.

As he sped towards the monster Red Wood spun on his front hooves and kicked with his rear. A nearly perfect buck, expect his missed. The Inkanyamba ducked on the first kick and Red Wood's legs came down ineffectively on the back of the creatures neck. With a flick of the thing's long snake like neck, the unicorn was flung into the air, flipping and rolling.

By all normal measurement of time Red Wood was knocked back twenty paces in two seconds, except things were not normal, Red Wood wasn't really in his own body and everything became peculiar when his body was flung through a particular spot in space about ten feet off the ground. A spot that no normal pony senses would have noticed. There was a strange feeling of disorientation and that invisible point over his shoulder from which he had been observing the fight, suddenly seemed to get caught on something. He watched in confusion as his body was flung away, while his point of view got stuck in place.

Looking closer trying to see what was holding him back, Red Wood noticed a distortion on the air. It reminded him of the effect heat waves had on a sunny day. Except it was dark and the distortion seemed to be spinning, like water swirling down a drain. A hole in the air, crying out in fright but making no noise, Red Wood felt himself pulled down into the hole

The world seem to stretch and fall away, for a long moment his vision was completely dark, but most strangely he heard new voices, ones that he had never heard before.

"Mission director here, all departments, go, no go." spoke the first of these voices, it sounded male and full of pops and static like from a badly copied phonograph.

There was a flood of responding voices, some male some female, all staticy and distorted.

"ETA here, go."

"Com Link here, nominal go."

"Thermo here, go"

"MSM here, shields nominal, go."

"RSR here, hold, repeat hold." when a female voice said this, the rest suddenly went quiet.

The first voice returned and asked.

"Director here, RSR what's the issue."

The female voice replied. "I'm getting back pressure readings from the portal. Numbers are inline with a solid object overlapping it."

A number of the voices seemed to reply at once then."

"A bird?"

"Scan said we're ten feet off the ground."

"Can we get a video?"

"No! At current download rates, it take 20 minutes to get even a thumbnail."

"The upload rate is at full thousand TB sec, we can reprogram some of nano's to look around and give us a judgement call."

"Hold one, density is changing I think it's moving away, download bandwidth is so slow, it was probably nothing, or an animal that moved away already."

The original voice returned, "Portal Control here. We're going to give it one minute, if it stays clear we'll pick up the countdown from the hold, otherwise we'll reset until we have more data."

That was the last voice that Red Wood could make out, before his vision suddenly returned and he was bouncing on the ground.

He shook his head, realizing that whatever had just happened, it had woken him from his dreamstate. His vision was no longer from over his shoulder but definitely and painfully coming from his real eyes. He had no time to even think about the confusing voices, the Inkanyamba was just a few body lengths away and moving.

Red Wood tried to stand, it was as if knives had been driven into his spine. Inch by inch he got to his hoofs and turned to look. The Inkanyamba was still on the other side of the clearing, pacing back and forth, growling challenges. It was then, for the first time, the smell hit Red Wood, it was the rusty iron smell of pooled blood. The fear washed over Red Wood like a wave on the sand, it seemed impossible that he would have the strength to withstand it. The Inkanyamba teeth reflected the moonlight. Red Wood start to turn, to run, to be herded.

And as he turned from the monster, Red Wood saw another set of eyes. Eyes watching him in the bushes. Watching him, not the monster, familiar purple blue eyes that he had seen both in his dreams and his waking world for ten years. The eyes of his son, they eyes of his wife. Bayan was still hiding in those bushes and if Red Wood had ran this direction, he would have led the monster straight towards his son!

"NO!" Red Wood called,a sudden coldness filled Red Woods heart, he would not endanger his son! With absolute cold control, Red Wood slowly turned away and stared straight into the Inkayamba's eyes.

The Inkanyamba growled at the pony, and Red Wood whinnied back. Not a sound of fear, a battle cry. Magic was forgotten, only anger and the will to protect his own, filled Red Wood's heart. He stamped his hoofs and then took off at a full gallop, any pain from his back injuries , forgotten.

Red Wood continued his charge, his horn leading, no magic just a deadly sharp spike, he smashed head first into the side of the monster. He felt his horn break the skin of the abomination and some part of him relished in the gush of black red blood that splashed over his neck and shoulders. The Inkanyamba screamed in pain and anger. Ponies didn't fight! Ponies always ran! The monster didn't know what hit him.

It was hurt, but not down. The long snake like neck swung like a club and knocked the unicorn away, perhaps not wisely as Red Wood's horn did even more damage as it was forcefully withdrawn. Bloody sweat had always dripped from the Inkanyamba's scales as part of its fear magic, but now its real life black brown blood was pouring out in a gush.

Red Wood was knocked across the clearing, his body rolled smashed against thorny bushes and his skin torn against sharp sticks. He was jerked and pulled around, disoriented and motion sick. There was a snap and one of his legs bent the wrong way. His leg was on fire! He couldn't move and the Inkanyamba turned to look at him, anger in the deadly creatures eyes.

Red Wood lifted his head and stared into his enemies eyes. The Inkanyamba stared back, it took a step towards the pony, hate and pain in its glaze. The thing slipped on blood and stumbled as it tried to move towards Red Wood. One step, two, it whined, it slipped again, then as the thing came nose to nose to Red Wood, it let out one last whine and with violent shudder, the monster fell. It's eyes rolling up into its head.

With one last whimper, the monster fell still, bleeding out on Red Wood's hoofs.

Even as Red Wood lay, not ready yet to try to stand, breathing heavily and watching his enemy for any signs of life. He heard some movement across the clearing behind him. Painfully he shuffling to kneel on three legs, he kept his body between whoever was behind him and his son, then Red Wood motioned with one hoof to Banyan to stay hidden. The familiar eyes, wide and scared looking, withdrew back into the bushes.

For several long moments Red Wood stood there, making sure Banyan was well hidden, then he turned around and was surprised by two sights. He mostly expected, at this point, the troop of strange ponies that were stepping into the clearing. The Cultists had found him, they must have been drawn here by the noise of their fight. What Red Wood didn't expect was the light show that was going on in the middle of the clearing.

Coming from an invisible point, about ten feet off the ground, a shower of white sparks was falling into the middle of the field. It was dense and bright, throwing sparks like an arch welder, but there was no smoke and all the sparks fell coldly to the ground, forming a growing pool of light.

The cultists, nearly twenty ponies strong now, seemed more interested in the light show, than in Red Wood. He thought he might take a chance to escape in the distraction, he turned and tried to slip away into the shadows.

If he had all four of his legs, he might have made it, but stumbling on three, made it slow going, too slow. The first cultist, one who stood ahead of the the others and wore the brightest colored robe, noticed Red Wood and called loudly. "Behold, the traveler has brought himself to the appointed place! Just as the prophecy said he would. Look! He has proved his worth by conquering the beast! Brothers! Prepare him for the foretold arrival!"

Red Wood heard the words of the Cultist and tried to hurry his pace, but had gone hardly two more paces before three burly earth pony cultists, slammed into him and pinned him to the ground.

"Let me go!" Red Wood screamed, trying to buck and kick but with his injuries and weakened state, he had no chance to shift even one of the three earth ponies, not to mention escaping from all three. Belatedly he tried to ignite his magic and feel for any rocks or sticks he could levitate as clubs, but as soon as his horn started to glow, one of the burly ponies just banged his horn with his hoof. The sharp pain broke Red Wood's concentration, perhaps professional guard unicorns could cast when pinned but Red Wood never had that sort of training. They dragged him to the center of the clearing, just next to the pool of light.

As ropes were tied around his legs the leader of the Cultists stepped closer. "Ahh, the master craftpony. Yes we were expecting you. All this has been foretold and you have come at the perfect time to face your destiny."

"Shut up!" Red Wood spat at the leader. "I know you're the ones that killed my wife! Whatever your sick plan is, the Princesses already know about it and a squad of Pegasus are on there way here now!"

"We know about the Princess and the Pegasus!" The leader sneered as he said 'Princess', "The feather heads will not be here for hours yet. As for your former wife? You should be proud of her, she had proved useful, nearly as useful," The leader paused dramatically, " As you will be."

The leader turned to talk to the other cultists, calling two unicorns closer to himself for a whispered conversation.

Pinned to the ground by the three ponies, Red Wood could just lay there, his eyes taking in the cultists appearances and garb for the first time. There seemed to be about twenty of them, a little more than half were earth ponies and the rest, including the leader were unicorns. Red Wood figured the leaders reference to 'feather heads' made it unlikely that Pegasuses were welcome. They all wore a strange ritualistic looking outfit,Toga wrap of light cloth that covered their flanks and cutie marks and was tied with a midriff belt and around just their left front leg. A second wrap of cloth over their heads, covering their mane and hid their eyes. The cloth must have been thin enough to see though but it effectively hide their identities. Even the horns of the unicorns were wrapped in white cloth.

The leaders, and there seemed to be several of various ranks, stood out by wearing colored neck wrappings, the more gold thread elaborate stitching, the higher the rank. The one with the most gold and seemed to be the one who spoke the most. Red Wood couldn't tell much about him, other that it was a stallion unicorn with a mostly yellow coat and blue tail. He did notice one oddity that made him also stand out, his horn was sharper than average with the tip having worn its way through its wrap.

The leader Having finished giving instructions to the two other unicorns, the leader spoke again, directing most of his attention to his followers, but also gesturing and motioning to Red Wood as if trying to engage him.

"Many years ago, we received a message from the future, one that spoke of who would come to this land. This visitor would bring gifts of knowledge and power. We the faithful was informed by the Stone Heart, we knew that we had to be the ones to lead the visitor, to guide him and direct him. We had to make sure his gifts would only go to the deserving."

"Let me guess!" Red Wood yelled out, "and you get to decide who the deserving is going to be?" Red Wood had called this out, not because he cared anything about whatever the mad cultist was blabbering about, but he wanted to show that he wasn't completely licked, some sort of defiance.

The cult leader didn't so much as pause, he just gave Red Wood a nasty glance, and continued. "Ahh! but the Traveler doesn't yet understand the role he must play. He must be shown the prophecy so he can start to understand the depth of the honor that is granted to him."

The leader gestured to the two unicorns he had talked to before, "Come brother, sister, you witnessed the latest prophecy of the oracle, let the traveler see and hear the truth from the oracle's mouth."

At a gesture from the leader, the two unicorns came out of the crowd. They tapped their horns together and stepping apart a magical image started to form between them. A glowing square of light not unlike a movie screen. One of the earth ponies holding Red Wood down, forced his head to turn towards the screen,making him watch.

In the image a moving picture formed and sound echoed in the clearing. While the image was clear, wherever they had recorded this, it was dark. There was just a handful of tiny candles and a medium sized fire pit to provide light. It was in some sort of cave with an earthen floor and white crystals like quartz embedded in the walls. Around the fire was a troop of ponies, Red Wood recognized the cult leader nearest the fire, but most were unidentifiable.

Two dancing mares came into the view. The lighting was so bad that at first Red Wood could only see them as shadows, but as they drew closer to the firelight he could start to make out their form and color. Both were earth ponies mares, with white coats and nearly identical pink manes. They kept dancing around each other, gesturing, almost touching then backing away. At first Red Wood didn't see anything strange about how they were dressed, which was just the typical nothing at all, then he started to notice the bells and jewelry on them. It would have been less revealing had they remained nude, glued on gems and pierced jewelry, were layered and encircled their flanks and nether. While a thin chain of gold anchored around their hips pulled high their tails. The effect was to draw prurient attention and turning common casual nakedness into dangerous nudity. Red Wood could sense, that this was no Sunday picnic of a religious group, there was something unseemly, dirty, sexual going on here. Uncomfortable Red Wood tried to squirm, but the three guards on top of him, wouldn't let Red Wood look away.

The two dancing mares worked themselves into a sweaty frenzy, the surrounding thong, both inside the magic recorded image and in the real clearing, hooted and cried out with louder and louder animistic calls. Their motions became intense, orgasmic. Droplets of their sweats flung like rain, flickering in the firelight. More than just sweat, they drooling from their mouths, and dripping from, elsewhere.

Suddenly the Leader in the image, singled the dance was over. The two mares ran off to the side of the image, Red Wood figured they were done, but a few seconds later they dragged a third mare back with them.

Dragged was the right description, the third mare seemed to be fighting them. Red Wood couldn't see the new mare clearly, not ever her color, as they didn't bring her very close to the fire. Forced to stand in front of the flames, he could only see her silhouette, and it was disturbing. The mare was bald, all her mane had been cut off, and she only had a stub of a tail. Red Wood couldn't tell if her coat had been shaved, but he wouldn't have been surprised. The two formally dancing mares, held the new one tightly, touching and fondling her, but she seemed intent on ignoring them.

The cult leader and one of his robed followers stepped up and carried with them a bowl and a large cauldron like bucket. The leader pushed the bowl into the mares face, telling her to drink from it. The mare didn't answer with words, but spat at the leader, who ignored the assault. With the aid of the two dancers, the leader forced the mare to drink, much of the liquid spilled but apparently the Leader was satisfied that she drank enough. The three dropped the mare, who fell to the ground choking and gasping.

They waited, while the two original dancing mares returned to their gyrations, but now in tight circles around the choking mare, making sure she couldn't leave or escape. After a few minutes the mare slowly rose to her hoofs and started to sway with the other dancers. Not joining them, but no longer fighting them. Red Wood could tell she had been drugged.

The leader now took up the larger bucket and after making many mystic passed with his hoofs over the cauldron, dumped it on top of the drugged mare. Red Wood couldn't make out much from the liquid that was dumped, at least at first, it was thick jelly like, running in globs down the mares body, the bit of color he could see was green, but mostly it was transparent and full of bubbles.

The liquid slowly molded itself to the mares body, not a drop dripped to the ground, magically it seemed to flow up as well and down and around. The mare continued to dance seemingly unconcerned about the ooze, at least at first.

After a few moments, Red Wood could tell the liquid was pooling around specific parts of the mare's body, namely the orifices, all of them. She started choking, her air cut off as some of the slime squirmed it way down her throat, others seem to be finding entry elsewhere. Leaving the mare squirming wildly flinging her body around.

The cultists were again shouting, urging the goop onward, the ooze seemed to draw strength from them. It movements over her form became throbs. Pulse or waves running visibly though the liquid. Red Wood could tell that the mare was trying to fight off the effect, her hooves were trying to pull the stuff away from her, but it clung and pulled back. Each thrum of the gunk made the mare scream in disgust and protest.

The ooze was winning the fight, mare was slowing her protests and was starting to buck her body in tune. The hoofs that before were pulling the foul stuff away, now seemed to be intent on rubbing herself. Red Wood shuddered in disgust as his own body reacted involuntarily to the sight of the mare's first clear orgasm.

He wanted to turn away, this was beyond disgusting, beyond torture. He tried to turn his head, but the three earth ponies that pinned him down wouldn't let him, he did get a glance at them and saw that they were not trying to hide their own excitement from the obscene scene. They were not alone, looking at the crowd around, about half the cultists were openly enjoying themselves adding their own foul smells to match the obscene images on the screen.

Unable to turn away, not even allowed to keep his eyes closed, Red Wood looked back at the screen and saw the mare writhing around. Her body betrayed her as she gave into the assault. More and more of the green liquid disappeared into the mare, leaving her only coated in a thin shiny film of the stuff. With a scream of either pain or ecstasy, she shuddered and fell still.

In the image, the cult leader again moved forward and putting a hoof in the air over her head, she floated up, like a puppet on a string.

"Tell us the future!" the leader demanded of the mare.

With no sign of spirit in her body or eyes, just her mouth moving on it own, a voice came from the mare. It was un pony like, dead sounding, punctuated with animal grunts and growls.

The Visitor will arrive in a shower of light.

The Traveler will be a maker of sound.

Who plays nothing but starts the fight.

Death will start the Traveler's journey profound.

As the mare growled her rhyming phrases, images seem to float smoke around her. Not many of the image made sense, but a few were clear.

The dead will awaken, new of mind.

The wealth of worlds spread before.

The flying ones will be caught blind.

The faithful will profit from the war

Above the mare were Images of war and ponies fighting, with a river of bits flowing into reaching hooves.

The visitor will bring knowledge untold.

Towers of steel, and birds of metal.

of lightning caught on strings of gold.

And magic to make the masses controlled.

Now the images seemed to be of city scapes, large flying craft in the sky above.

The faithful will trade in life and death.

The faithful will harvest from the visitors grief.

The faithful will control who is blessed.

The faithful will seize what the princesses posses

A blood red sky floated above the mare, with shadows of falling winged ponies.

The visitor will fight the faithful.

The visitor will serve the faithful.

The visitor will aid the rule of the faithful.

The visitor will give the crown to the faithful.

In the image now appeared rows and rows of the cultists, far more than where here. Standing in a pyramid formation, the leader in front holding a sharp pointed crown. At their feet were innumerable piles of pony bodies, either dead or bowing down to the cultists.

The faithful will guide.

The faithful will hide.

The visitor will find the pariah.

The visitor will free leadership.

The close up image now was of the cultist laying in piles of gold, with chained servants, dressed like the first set of dancers but more numerous, fanning the cultists, feeding them fruit, and serving their bodies in all possible ways.

To summon the visitor follow these rules.

The Traveler's body must be made empty.

Faithful depart beyond one hundred chains.

No soul may see, the visitor is wary.

This last image was of star charts, clocks and an arrangement of geometric lines that might have represented maps.

With this last word, the mare seemed to fall from the leaders magic grasp and collapsed on the ground. Gasping and heaving she vomited out the vial fluid, gallons of the stuff, no pony went to help her and she lay in her own filth, too exhausted to move. While the others, not just the other mares, but the whole troop of cultists danced around her. Slowly she crawled closer to the fire pit reaching for some some comfort from the warmth.

It was only then that light reflected clearly on her head. There was a shiny spot there, a flat hard spot. The mare was a unicorn, not an earthy pony, and her horn had been cut off.

Red Wood screamed, shouted and yelled, but no one cared. The whole group of cultists where dancing along with the ones in the image. Their victory declared by their oracle.

Red Wood looked at the image again, of the mare collapsed again at the edge of the fire pit. Looking for any proof of what he feared wasn't true, but seeing nothing that helped him know for sure, until tears blurred his vision to uselessness.

The cult leader call out to his follower to calm down.

"Soon my friends, soon all this will come to pass, but we have duties yet to perform."

The leader walked over to Red Wood and with a gesture from one hoof told his guards to roll Red Wood onto his back. All four of his legs where stretched out, he was completely helpless and exposed.

The leader ran a hoof along Red Wood's belly finding a splotch of wetness there he wispered, "Ahh, the Traveler approves of the oracle's performance? "

Red Wood tried to flinch away, disgusted.

"Not surprising, she is pretty but she's not for you." The Leader continued, "The oracle may only consort with the appointed leader of Stone Heart, perhaps when the Visitor is here, I'll let him taste the oracle's sweet honey as a reward for aiding us. But you're not the Visitor, you're the Traveler."

The cult leader stood up and from some hiding place in his robes he gripped with his magic something thin and shiny. Brandishing it he called out loudly, "The oracle message was clear! We must depart this clearing, no soul may stand within two hundred chains when the Visitor arrives. That just under a half mile, we will re-group at our meeting point, then return here when the deed is done to welcome our guest."

The cult ponies started to file away, back in the woods and out of sight. Only the leader and the three guards remained, holding Red Wood down so he couldn't move. One had a hoof over his muzzle so he couldn't even cry out.

The leader looked up at the waterfall of light that was still pouring out of an invisible hole. It seemed to be slowing down now. Taking that as a single, he tuned to Red Wood. "Dear Traveler you are greatly honored, but like the oracle said, NO soul may remain, and that I'm afraid includes yours."

With a flash of magic, the shiny thing the leader had been brandishing, resolved itself into a large knife. Red Wood only got to see it for a moment, before it plunged deep into his chest. Even the hoof on his muzzle couldn't silence Red Wood gurgling scream, the pain was intense, he couldn't breathe, couldn't move, but after a prolonged dozen seconds or so of agony, it went away. Along with everything else.

Red Wood was dead.


	6. Chapter 6

Red Wood's body bled out slowly, while the cult leader looked down at his handiwork. If the Pony felt any remorse for his homicidal act, it didn't show on his face. The three burly earth ponies that had been holding Red Wood down looked side to side as if daring each other to say a word of protest but none could muster the courage. After a seemingly long wait Red Wood's eyes, which had been tiny in shock, relaxed in huge blank dead holes. The leader had been waiting for this as a sign and turned to his companions.

"The traveler has departed. The shell is ready for the visitor." The leader nodded towards the pool of light, "The Oracle's message was clear, we are not worthy of witnessing the coming miracle, untie the ropes and let us depart. We'll return when the Visitor has arrived."

Silently the four cultists left the clearing, only the leader did not look back in pity at the mangled body they were leaving behind.

After there hoof steps had faded into silence, one of the nearby bushes move. Nervously a small body slipped out of the darkness and crept towards Red Wood. Banyan had not seen most of what happened, but he had heard it through the bushes from his hiding place. He wasn't sure he understood much, if any, of what he heard but he did know not to try coming out of hiding until the cultists were gone.

"Daddy?" A small pitiful voice whispered. Banyan moved closer to the pile of flesh and blood that had been his father. "Daddy!" He called again, his voice growing louder.

"Get up daddy, we have to go!" The little unicorn cried.

"Daddy! Please! Daddy!" Banyan wailed at the un-moving form of his father, "please Daddy, I'll .. I'll get help!"

In a class of terror far greater than any ghost or bogeyman could inspire, Banyan turned and ran, away in the opposite direction the cultists had gone crying "Help! Help!" His voice swallowed up by the darkness.

For several minutes, Red Woods body was alone in the clearing. It's only company the equally dead body of the Inkanyamba and the un-moving pool of light. Then Banyan far off in the woods crossed an invisible line, six hundred and fifty meters from the center of the light pool. By chance without knowing its significant, he stopped then and not seeing any help in that direction, turned back to the clearing.

Six hundred and fifty meters was an arbitrary number made up by a planning committee while sitting around a table and drinking coffee, they didn't see it as magic number or a something of great importance, they just wrote on a mission guide "probe is not to start boot up procedures until life sensors report no sentient life within safety range." Sometimes even bureaucrats can stumble on something profound, because had they chosen a larger number Banyan would not have run far enough away, and a smaller distance and the cultists who had their own mystic insight into this rule, might have been close enough to intervene.

Regardless of the coincidences of the situation, once Banyan was far enough away, the pool of light started to wake up. It wasn't really a pool of magical photons, rather it was the visual result of thousands of trillions of particles, machines in fact, if not form, too small to be seen even with an optical microscope. Individually they were not much larger or much more complex than simple viruses. But in numbers they were powerful and many times more complex than any simple biological life form. In seconds they started to organize, to boot up, to awaken.

First to start was dumb time sequencers and sensors, working on logic circuits no more complicated than a digital watch, these first systems sensed the environment, recognized they met the programs requirements for being alone and started to organize into ad-hock networks to uncompress and sort the massive data packets needed to run the main medical module, a functional if somewhat restrained Artificial Intelligence or the Doctor as it was internally identified as.

Like a glowing ghost, the mass of nano devices, formed a cloud like structure, lifting themselves out of the depression and started to survey the area. It drifted first over to the body of the Inkanyamba, dropping pseudo-pods of foggy light on the body, probing it, after a few seconds the Doctor classified the monster as 'uninteresting' and moved on to the other body in the clearing.

The cloud of nanites, hovered over Red Wood's form, and was briefly confused.

Organic Intelligence like Humans and Ponies, frequently would hold in their minds an internal dialog or stream of consciousness as the way to clarify their own understanding of a situation. Most people just called this the simple act of 'thinking.' The Doctor did something similar, while most of the its internal thought mechanisms were multidimensional and resembled statistics tables, at the top of its logic processes, it would record an internal log of its observations and conclusions.

In that internal log the Doctor recorded,

Observation:

Location: arrival location.

No living sentients detected in safe zone.

Two dead bodies in arrival location.

Unexpected.

Identify as Subject 1 and Subject 2

Initial observation is both subjects died from blood loss.

Subject 1 is unknown race, has only 43% resemblance to target species. Death occurred between 30 and 50 minutes previous. Does not meet minimal requirements as outline by requirement lists. Decision discard Subject 1.

Subject 2 is identified as 'Pony' subclass 'Unicorn'. Death occurred between 4 and 9 minutes previous. Meets all minimum requirement as outline by requirement lists. Decision, tentative to proceed with Subject 2.

Contrary Notice:

I was not expecting to find suitable subjects so close to arrival point. Mission guide indicates an expectation to have to travel to local cities, hospitals and morgues for possible subjects, not expecting to find suitable match for a period of weeks.

Internal conflict: 18% rational cores vote I should skip this Subject and proceed with Mission guide. 34% vote I should gather more data. 38% vote to proceed as a way to expedite overall mission. Remaining votes are mixed, with note worthy concerns over ethical issues.

Conclusion I will proceed with the expedited mission.

Plan process:

a: Start un-compressing Subject 'Parker' from data store.

b: Stabilized and repair suitable body.

c: Engage neural scan to determine compatibility points.

d: Start re-configuring higher functions to be compatible with Subject 'Parker' data set.

e: Retain reflexes and common physical skill sets as recorded by original 'Subject 2's host brain.

f: Wire compatible translation nodes as required.

g: Upload Subject 'Parker' to Subject 2's body.

h: Await further instructions from authorized master.

All this internal dialog and mental discussion the Doctor was having with itself was silent and took only a few seconds. During that time Bayan had run full speed back into the clearing.

The young colt stood at the edge of clearing, from his point of view, he saw a ghostly cloud resting over his fathers clearly injured body. He lived in a world of magic, one where supernatural creatures were a reality, and not simply things of stories. His quick mind immediately classified the glowing creating.

"Daddy?" Banyan's eyes was fixed on the glowing from rather than the mangled body.

His next reaction may not have been what Red Wood would have expected, had the adult been able to hear it.

"Awesome! Daddy you're a ghost!"


	7. Chapter 7

Banyan looked up at the glowing apparition and a mixture of awe and fear. He didn't 'want' his father to be a ghost, but being a ghost was better than being dead, right? Banyan glanced down at Red Wood's body expecting to see the stomach churning mass of blood and flesh that he had glanced before. Instead most of the blood was gone, except as wet stains on the ground. Even as he watched the last of the visible wounds closed like a zipper, not even leaving a scar.

Banyan, looked up amazed "Daddy, are you healing yourself? Can ghosts do that?"

The glowing cloud, which was 'very much not' Red Wood, but rather the visible part of a nanoparticle cloud controlled by a medical AI self identified as the Doctor, was very confused by the sudden arrival of the colt pony. It had not sensed the approaching child as it had appropriated the long range sensors for the ongoing medical procedures. Some part, in truth a very small part because the Doctor was already deeply committed to some very complex surgery, turned sensors to look towards Banyan and try to figure out what the arrival of the colt meant.

Internal Log:

Interruption by unexpected sentient creature.

Classification, male unicorn pony. Age undetermined.

Label as 'Subject 3'

Language modules activated, and detected recognizable speech.

Speech Sample attached to storage file.

Key words identified: 'Daddy' 'healing' 'ghosts'

Situation abnormal.

Probability 90% Subject 3 is family member of Subject 2

Probability 54% Subject 3 believes in supernatural fictions.

Confusion: Subject 3 is a Unicorn, also classified as supernatural fiction.

Conflict averted, mission goal modify local definition of 'supernatural' will vary from stored records.

Normal Procedure, Notify Nurse to lead Family members to appropriate waiting area.

FAILURE, No Nurse or other Staff available.

Must deal with family member myself.

Not expecting this situation.

Load from Network guidelines for dealing with family members.

FAILURE, No Network available, must use local storage and records only.

Situation abnormal.

QUERY: Is Subject 3 legally responsible for Subject 2? Query law banks.

FAILURE, No Network available, must use local storage and records only.

Action: Load language and speech modules at ask Subject 3 for clarification.

The Doctor used some of the spare nanites to shape the glowing cloud into a rough approximation of a head, at first using a standard human head mesh, but after a moments consideration, morphed the mesh with data from Red Wood's head and face, creating an image that was about halfway between human and ponies faces. It then turned that face towards Banyan making the image lip sink as other nanites vibrated the air as an impromptu speaker. "What are you doing here?" the Doctor asked.

"Daddy! I know you told me to hide, but I came back to help!" Banyan answered somewhat definitely, the Doctor's voice hadn't really sounded much like Red Wood, but the little colt wanted desperately to believe that the ghost was somehow his father's spirit.

The Doctor asked, "You think I am your male parent? Is Subject 2 your father?" then reconsidering, it couldn't expect the Child to know its internal names and identifiers, at least not until he regained network access and could publish its report. the Doctor clarified, "I mean this body that I'm attempting to repair." A wisp of the nanocloud gestured down at Red Wood's body.

Banyan blinked in confusion, "You're not my daddy?" Banyan pointed at the now apparently healed Red Wood, "That's my daddy!"

This the Doctor could answer succinctly, "No I am not capable of having children. I am a medical unit assigned to…Please standby..." The Doctor's voice cut off. Part of it's mind had been spent processing the situation and suddenly found itself in conflict.

Internal Log:

Conversation with Subject 3 is related by blood to Subject 2

Probability 90% Subject 3 has power of attorney over disposable of Subject 2.

this is in conflict with mission goals.

Action: Request permission to proceed according to original mission goals.

The Doctor asked, "Please identify yourself, I do not know your name."

"I'm Banyan! Are you a ghost? That's my daddy your healing, will he be OK?"

The Doctor considered its answer, "I am not a ghost, I am a medial unit and I am healing the body, but my mission goal is now in conflict." The Doctor added, "Your parent is dead by the local legal standards."

The doctor was about to say more, but about this time one of the software packages for dealing with family member had finally been uncompressed from long term storage. The Doctor mentally looked over the family bedside manner module and decided he needed to tone down his response, "Bringing your parent back to full normal function may be difficult."

Banyan's mind couldn't really comprehend what the Doctor was trying to say, he heard only one thing "you parent is dead' and immediately started crying. "No! No! Look you healed him! Please bring him back! bring him back! I'll do anything!"

Internal Log:

Conversation with Subject 3, now identified as 'Banyan' is not proving helpful.

Conflict with mission goals are growing.

Condition: I am supposed to confer with a 'master' if mission goals are in conflict.

FAILURE, No Network available, must use local storage and records only.

Answer: All humans are classified as 'Masters', Mission Document states that for legal purposes Ponies are to be considered 'Human', 'Banyan' meets this requirement.

Query: Is 'Banyan' able to authorize modification mission goals.

FAILURE, No Network available, must use local storage and records only.

Answer: Need to access Subject 'Parker' for further instructions.

Conflict: Uploading Subject 'Parker' into bio neural networks of Subject will preclude ability to repair and revive Subject 2's original neural network. Subject 2 will be overwritten and lost.

Conflict: Subject 'Parker' also needs to be revived, nanite upload storage is temporary and will fail if I use resources to repair Subject 2's brain.

Situation in conflict.

Rule: Do no harm invoked.

Situation in conflict, danger of logic loop. Ask for clarification for available 'master.'

The Doctor looked at the child, uncertain of what was the right course of action, it tried to explain the situation, "If I do as you ask, I will cause harm to another. I can not repair your parent's mind, without using resources needed to download subject 'Parker's mind. This will effectively kill subject 'Parker.'

Banyan couldn't understand, though he started to sense there was something serious behind this ghosts confusion. "I want my daddy!" was his only answer.

"This is a very complicated request and is in direct conflict with my mission goals."

"Daddy!" Banyan just cried.

Internal Log:

Situation:Original Mission goals are now impossible.

Rule: Do no harm invoked.

Situation: Need to revive two minds, but only have one available body.

Query: Can I wait until another body becomes available?

FAILURE, No Network available, must use local storage and records only.

Answer: No. This body will decay to an unusable extent if I wait.

Submit Simulation runs for alternative options:

Running…...

Solution options Amalgamate if sufficient resources are applied.

Situation: Level of resources required will likely damage medical unit.

Query: Is medical unit expendable?

FAILURE, No Network available, must use local storage and records only.

Answer: Yes, though it will require an override command.

The Doctor asked Banyan, "I will attempt to do what you wish, but I will have to use all my entire stock of available nanoparticles and will not have enough left to achieve any of the remaining mission goals. In effect I will likely cease to function as a result of trying to save your parent. Please confirm that is what you wish."

Though distraught and wild with grief, the last part of the Doctor's statement did get through to the crying child. How unfair a choice to make a ten year old to make! He understood enough to ask the Doctor, "You'll die if you save daddy?"

The Doctor thought about that, "Death is not the right term for me, I will be compromised, greatly weakened and probably unable to perform further healing duties for an extended period. I do not believe you have the technology here to repair me or provide energy, so my usefulness will be at a minimal."

"So you won't die, just become weak, and my daddy will live?" Banyan wanted the Doctor to make this clear.

The Doctor took a long few seconds to think this over, "My core will remain for sometime at low power, it would be unlikely but in time your technology might advance sufficiently and I could be revived. So Yes."

"Then do it! Please!" Banyan begged.

"As you command, master." The Doctor answered, mildly considering to itself with cool interest, that this child just ordered it to commit something akin to suicide.


	8. Chapter 8

The child pony had just ordered the Doctor to do everything in its power to rescue his father. A major complication, since that was in conflict with his original instructions. Worse it was isolated, unable to contact anyone of authority for directions, a very unusual situation as the Doctor's world was normally one hundred percent networked.

The Doctor considered its options. When trying to deal with something outside its experience, such as talking to a grieving pony child, the type of AI that was the Nano Cloud Doctor, had no more than 'human level' intelligence and less experience than an organic human or pony might, but in the Doctors core specialty it was truly a super-genius.

A person could with some training, might envision the layout of their own house and the streets and paths around their home, spin it in their mind and envision the layout and organization from angles and attitudes that their physical eyes had never been able to. A really skilled person could hold in their mind the entire road system of their local town or neighborhood something like perhaps one hundred to two hundred streets and intersections. Beyond that they would have to use more and more mental shortcuts, simplifications and leave out details. This was a physical limit of the intelligence of the organic brain, but the Doctor was not so limited. He could envision at once, not just a few hundred streets, but billions even trillions. The pathways and sub functions of a neural network with a hundred billion connections was as simple for the Doctor to see as a whole, as an organic person could navigate the familiar path from their bedroom to their front door with their eyes closed. It was a very specialized skill and wasn't applicable with day to day life, but it was what the Doctor had been built for.

The nanit probes had already saturated Red Wood's body and the Doctor now could see at once how all the neural connections were wired together. He could easily identify the neural clusters that handled the non intelligent functions, marking for repair and not replacement those parts of the Red Wood's mind that handled things like simple balance, walking, vision pre-processing and object and edge detection, sound filtering and image prediction.

The parts of Red Wood's mind that handled the sense of self, the internal dialog of thought and the personal bibliographic memories. The Doctor had no hesitation to label these parts of Red Wood's brain, as his 'soul' using the word as a purely technical term that to the Doctor had no supernatural mystery about it.

It took its time, nearly forty five seconds to do all this indexing, now the Doctor reached the point of decision, its original mission orders were to overwrite these parts with the mind of a human, Subject 'Parker' that the Doctor had in its memory storage. A common procedure back on the Doctor's world, that was usually done to blank undifferentiated cloned neural tissue as standard method of repairing physically damaged brains. But with Banyan's childish instructions that was no longer the procedure the Doctor was being asked to do. With some hesitation, because the Doctor did not completely lack a sense of self preservation, it started to reprogram large numbers of its spare nanites to modify the glia cells, normally extra cells that did not participate in the neural networks, they started to expand and reconfigure, growing synapses and merging into the neural networks in ways that would never happen naturally. On the fly the Doctor had to invent new ways for the new neural clusters to interface, but this is the sort of 'intelligence' the Doctor was built for.

As the Doctor worked, more and more of his resources were being consumed,as each nanites internal energy pool would become exhausted, the Doctor would direct them to use their remaining power to exit from Red Wood's body. The result the unicorn was gaining on outline on grass of dull weakened nanites. Individually they were still invisible but in numbers they started to resembled a fine crumble of dull glowing rusty dust.

Banyan watched all this, speechless and scared. Towards the beginning of the process he grew excited when he saw that his father's body was breathing again, and he sensed the vibration of a beating heart as a flutter on Red Wood's exposed throat. Not understanding that the real battle was taking place inside Red Wood's skull, Banyan tried to call to his father again. The Doctor wasn't easily distracted, but then the child kept kept poking Red Wood in the side, trying to wake his father.

The Doctor formed the face again and said in what its sound library said was a kindly voice, "I'm sorry, but I need to work, this is a very delicate procedure, can you please stand back and be quiet?"

Quickly Banyan trotted backwards, to give the Doctor room. For forty minutes, Banyan flicked pebbles at the ugly Inkanyamba's body and waited. There wasn't much visible change going on now, but steadily the Doctor grew fainter, there was less and less substance to the nano cloud that now barely floated over Red Wood's body. After a long delay with nothing seeming to be happening, the Doctor motioned to Banyan, waving thin wisps of glowing nano cloud like limbs. It took several waves for Banyan to realize he was being called over.

The Doctor no longer had enough spare mass to form a face, so he compressed his mass into the outline of a circle and said to Banyan, "I've done all that I can, there will probably be complications, I wish I could help more, I'm beyond all my safety limits. The Subjects should awaken in a few minutes, please inform the Subject 'Parker' that I was not able to install all the normal implants and apps, I was only able to include a simple diary recorder and a copy of my own clinical observations. Please ask him to send the report back to our home as soon as he can, I do not believe I will be able to send the report myself. Sorry I no longer have sufficient energy to comuiaSTATIC….."

With that, the last of the glowing cloud faded, a faint red dust covered the ground, just barely glowing like dying embers.

Banyan felt sad looking at the faint dust, but what choice did he have? He started crying again, not really understanding why, he just he felt bad for the Doctor. For a long time he just watched his father's body breathing, uncertain what to do.

Then the rate of breathing started to pick up and Red Wood's body started to thrash around. Banyan ran forward and flung his small body on his fathers, trying to pin him down, to try to stop the thrashing.

"Daddy!" Banyan yelled again and again, for the first time since the Doctor had told him to be quiet. That seemed to get through, Red Wood's thrashing slowed and instead he fought to sit.

At first his attempts were a failure, like he was trying to bend his waist in a way no pony could bend. Then slowly he calmed down, and got on his haunches to sit naturally. He had kept his eyes closed, as if in great pain, but now blinking he opened them and looked around.

Banyan smiled at his father and jumped into his forelegs. "Daddy! You're awake!"

"What!" Red Wood looked around confused, "Who are…"

Then even before Red Wood could finish his question, the cultists returned.


	9. Chapter 9

As Banyan tried to help his father up to his hoofs, the older unicorn looked around with a mixture of confusion and grumbling questions, most of which made no sense to the young colt. It seemed that his father was upset that Banyan was here, though he hadn't since awakening really yet said a complete sentence that Banyan could understand. But Banyan was happy, his father was alive, the ghost had saved him! Things couldn't be better! That is, until the stamping of hoofs marked the return of the cultists.

Banyan spun around when he heard the approaching cultists. They had entered the clearing surrounded by a light halo of floating candles suspended in unicorn magic. There seemed to be even more cultists now, more must have arrived, they formed a half circle around Banyan and his father, staying a respectful distance away, before kneeling and bowing. Only the leader remained standing.

Banyan saw his father struggle to all four hooves and in a hoarse whisper croak out,"What's going on here!"

"Don't you remember daddy!" Banyan asked, "these are the bad ponies that hurt you!"

Banyan's father looked down at the colt, he seemed to be in some pain and grumbled, "No! this can't be right."

The Leaders of the cult called out then, "Hail Visitor! Don't mind the colt, he is but a confused child." The leader directed his eyes angrily at the the guard cultists near him, "Who shouldn't be here at all!"

Banyan's father looked at the cultist and laughed, rubbing his eyes, "You ponies look so cute in those robes!" He fell to his side, kicking and laughing.

The cult leader took a step backwards, he wasn't expecting the Visitor to call him 'cute'

Banyan was even more outraged, these monstrous ponies had hurt his daddy, very badly, running, not laughing was the right reaction. "Daddy we have to get out of here!"

Still laughing but starting to calm down, his father replied, "Something screwed up badly, there shouldn't be any welcome party! I should be alone and oh ah…"

He stood very unsteadily and rubbed his head, "I have the worst hangover! That's not right! What did that damn medic do to me?"

The cult leader looked with some disgust at the pair of unicorns, "The oracle was right about everything else, but this is wrong! You should be barely able to move! Weak and in desperate need of our help! The oracle said you could only move after we healed you!" He pointed an agree hoof at Banyan,"That foul foal! He's corrupted the Visitor!"

Banyan was scared, his father was talking silly and seemed sick, but there was no place safer he knew of, so he ran behind his father and huddled there. What was especially strange was how his father kept looking at him with a confused expression. "Kid," he asked, "you are a kid right? What's going on here and why are you calling me daddy?"

Banyan's eyes opened with new terror when the THING that looked like his father, asked that. "No! The ghost said you'd be alright! No! I want my daddy!"

The thing in Red Wood's body, opened its eyes wide in sudden understanding and various pieces of the puzzle fell into place, "Oh no! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! You weren't supposed to ... damn!"

In a shock of clarity Banyan understood, this 'Thing' in front of him only looked like his father, it wasn't truly him on the inside. Banyan looked up at the stranger in his fathers body and fell to the ground crying.

The leader of the cultists had enough and started yelling, "That enough! Somepony take that colt out of my sight! To Tartarus with him!"

Two of the bulky cultists started to move forward, reaching out to grab Banyan.

The Thing in Red Wood's body put up a hoof and said "Wait! Wait, lets not be hasty. If I'm right, the kid here had a real bad day, don't take it out on him. Wait did you just say 'Somepony'? Oh! this is so messed up!"

The cult leader was now so angry his muzzle was lathering like a rabid dog, "No! So many years of planning! You can't be the Visitor! You can't! Nothing you say makes sense! We got to get rid of them both! Kill them!"

The two cultists closing in on Banyan hesitated. "Kill the Visitor? But didn't we already?" one started ask the other, the brute held back for a moment, confused.

On hearing the word 'kill', the 'Thing's expression changed from confused but amused to cold stone serious, he turned towards Banyan, "Run kid! Run!"

Banyan didn't hesitate, the 'Thing' still looked like his father and he was in complete agreement that running was what they both had to do.

It took only a second before an entire mob of cultists were after the two.

Banyan was scared, terrified might be a better word, but he had enough sense to notice that the 'Thing' was letting him lead the way. He caught the Thing's eye and it shrugged back "Lead the way kid, I have no idea where we are!"

They ran for minutes, fear gave them some extra speed and the cultists seemed more chaotic than organized now. They gained a small lead, the stomping of hoofs still followed them, but they couldn't see the cultists though the thick growth. Banyan started to recognize some of the landmarks near them, a particularly tall tree he had seen before to one side, a hill he used to sled down in the winter on another, he frequently played in this part of the woods. They needed a place to hide and Banyan remembered a good one. "This way!" he called to the 'Thing' and led him back around that hill, it was turning partly back towards the cultists but Banyan didn't think the cultists would expect them to double back.

At the far side of the hill, at it's base was a jumble of old logs and some planks of wood, rescued from the town's dump. It wasn't much of a fort, but Banyan and a few of the other young colts had built it last summer. It was only partly intact, the roof had collapsed and it was more a jumble of logs than anything else.

"In here!" Banyan whispered, and led the way to a hiding spot behind the logs. The colt was able to squeeze in right away, the larger adult pony had more trouble but followed the colt. Behind the logs, there was a gap in the hill, not really a cave, more of a dimple but once there they were now completely hidden from outside.

The two ponies leaned against the hillside and caught their breaths with deep gasps. They stayed silent for a long time, just breathing and listening. The sounds of the cultists running through the woods faded and they seemed to be safe, for the moment.

The 'Thing' spoke first, "I'm sorry kid, you shouldn't have gotten mixed up in this, something's gone wrong, why were those crazy ponies after us?"

Banyan looked up at the 'Thing' it looked like his father, but his father never called him 'kid' but the ghost had said … What did the ghost say?

Banyan said, "I don't know! They broke into our house and chased daddy and me into that clearing. Then they hurt you, I mean my daddy, and the a ghost came and said he'll heal you. He said he would save you, but if you're not my daddy, then he lied!" Banyan was starting to get upset again, but kept his voice low in fear of the cultists.

"I got such a headache!" the 'Thing' replied, then asked, "I'm sorry, I really am sorry kid, those weird ponies messed things up badly, I wasn't supposed to end up in the body of a murder victim with the murderers right there. Equestria supposed to be peaceful, I was expecting to awaken in some old pony who died peacefully in a hospital somewhere."

"Who are you, if you're not my daddy?" Banyan leaned away from the stranger.

"The name Parker, Stewert Parker. I was supposed to stay hidden but I guess that plan's derailed now." Parker held out a hoof, "I'm sorry about your dad kid, really I am, but this is not the time, we got to get out of here and away, get you safe."

Banyan looked at the familiar hoof confused and scared, he didn't need a hoof shake, he needed a … Banyan ignored the hoof and threw himself on to Parker, hugging the surprised visitor. For a long moment Banyan just cried into Parker's coat, hugging him tightly, too upset to think or understand.

Parker just held the colt, "It's ok Banyan, It's ok, we'll get you somewhere safe."

A long time later, Banyan had calmed down enough that they could talk again.

Parker asked, "We need to go someplace safe, is there any police or whatever you have here nearby?"

"I don't think so, Coltsdale's too small for guards. We only have a mayor. Wait I remember you, I mean my daddy, told the mad ponies that squad of squad of Pegasus were on their way here, but the mean pony said they wouldn't get here in time."

"That's good that means that they have to leave soon. If we can just get to the mayor, he'll watch you and you should be safe." Parker thought for a moment then asked, "You know the mayor well?"

"Well he's daddy's friend, he comes by some nights and they talk on the porch. Sometimes when they think I'm asleep I'll sneak down and hide to listen to them talk." then looking a bit guilty, "Even sometimes I'll slip a cup of the cider."

"OK so you know him, I can drop you off and…" Parker started to say, then swiftly turning his head towards the colt. "That's hard cider, I told you that's no good for you!"

"Sorry." Banyan looked chastised, "Wait! When?"

"Never you mind! Just don't drink that stuff until you're older!" Parker told the colt, then before Banyan could disagree, he said "I haven't heard anyone for while now, I think we should try to run for it before they double back and find us. I wonder when sunrise is."

"Not for a long time, I think." Banyan judged it was just a bit past one am. Though that was just a guess for the young unicorn.

Parker kept tapping the side of his head, "This headache is the worse, I can't even bring up a map."

Banyan asked "A map? You have a map? I didn't see you carrying anything."

Parker answered, "Not that kind of map, ah, kind of strange, normally I can do somethings that you might call magic."

Banyan tapped his own unicorn horn, then pointed at Parker's. "That's not strange, we are unicorns."

"No, No, I mean an app, a different type of magic." Parker touched his horn with his hoof, "Unicorn horn, hadn't even thought about that yet. Have to try it out, but not now, can't risk it."

"An app? The ghost mentioned something that he called 'implants and apps' I was supposed to tell you something. Can't rightly remember."

"Great, where is that ghost? medical unit? It's supposed to hang around and help me."

"I think.. Please don't be angry, I think I killed it." Banyan looked down.

Parker looked incredulous, "I don't think you can kill the Doc, it's not really alive."

Banyan gulped loudly before telling Parker, "It warned me that saving you would exhaust it. It wanted me to chose." Banyan looked scared remembering the terrible choice the Doctor had made him make.

Parker looked worried, "Exhausted? I don't get it, but this not the time to worry about that, I can't find my apps, ok so we'll do this old fashion way. Are you ready to run? I think the town that way, right?" Parker pointed in the direction he felt the town should be in.

The two ponies, peeked out of the woodpile and looking side to side, neither saw any sign of further pursuit.

"OK, we go on three, one, two, THREE!"

They galloped away from the fort, the bushes and ground plants whipping their hides raw and they tore through the underbrush.

"Nearly there!" Banyan gasped, leading them past their old house, with its windows broken out and skidded past signs of burn marks in the lawn.

Parker took the lead, "We got to find more ponies, they'll leave us alone if we in a group!" he hoped. "There!" He gestured with a hoof at the town center, leading the way. "The Mayor's house, that's the safest!"

The two unicorns ran right up to the stairs that surrounded the Mayor's porch, when the door was thrown open. The Mayor stumbled out onto the porch in front of them.

"Mayor!" Parker his tone was relived as if he was calling out to an old friend.

But his happy greeting turned into decisively colder cry of anguish when the mayor continued to stumble, taking one step, two steps, then falling down the stairs at their hoofs. A bloody knife still sticking out the Mayor's side bleeding in great pulses.

Standing in the Mayor's door frame, and welding another knife, was the cult leader once again.

"No!" both Parker and Banyan yelled.

The cultist callously reached own and pulled the spare knife from the Mayor's back, "Don't look surprised visitor! Where else were you going to run to?"

The porch door slammed noisily behind the cultists as more stepped out onto the porch, their numbers swiftly growing.


	10. Chapter 10

There was a long pause, the cult leader had a flare for the dramatic and deliciously wanted to draw out the moment, seeing how helpless the two fugitives in front of him were.

"Back away Banyan." Parker told the young colt, putting himself between him and the cultists.

Parker looked down at the still body of the Mayor, a strained anger filled him, this was no stranger on the ground, Parker felt like he knew him. He looked up at the cult leader and asked "Why?"

The leader looked surprised at the question, but wasn't bothered by it, "That dog? He was the Bitches puppet, all the so called elected officials are. Besides he was not exactly cooperating when we needed his house while waiting for you."

"He had a wife and daughter!", Parker didn't question how he knew that, he just did.

"Oh, don't worry they are safe, already some of the Kin are transporting them to one of our strongholds, along with most of the fillies and mares of the dirt pile of a town. In time they will discover joy in their new role, serving the Stone Heart."

Parker's blood ran cold, were these mad ponies so powerful they occupied the whole town? "Kin? Who the hell are you!" he asked.

The leader seemed to gain confidence and smiled as he answered, "We are the followers of the Stone Heart, an honorable order dedicated to protecting the common pony against the tyranny of the feathered abominations who soil the Canterlot throne!"

Parker stood there stunned, then looking up at the sky, "Damn! Fucking Luna Rebellion fanfics, we were warned! " then looking towards the cult leader, "you're insane! Just stop! These things never work out. Even back in my world"

The cult leader seemed completely unperturbed by Parker's outburst, "See my friends, just as the oracle foretold, at first he would fight us and stand with the evil ones, but in the end the Visitor will become our most powerful tool! And behold he just admitted that he brings knowledge our our struggle from his world!"

The leader returned his attention back to Parker, "We expected you to struggle, but the Oracle also said you would join us when you needed our help to be healed. I figured it was from the wounds on the Traveler's body, but you seemed to already have healed yourself, perhaps you can keep doing that," The leader gave Parker a feral grin, "but perhaps not."

Parker didn't like the sound of that. He started backing away trying to keep Banyan shielded by his body.

While he had been talking the leader dropped his knives and levitated a thick Branch from the ground. "let's try and try again."

With a swift blast of magic the leader levitated his makeshift club and smashed or hard against Parker's side.

Parker reared up and knowing that it was useless to try talking anymore, he prepared to run. He pushed Banyan forward and away from the villeins, not that the colt needed much encouragement. The two started to run, but they got no more than a few steps before a rain of sticks and stones pelted Parker's hindquarters.

He felt bright fireworks of pain, shooting up his rear hips, the stones and sticks were blunt, but the repeated hard hits, were breaking coat and skin. Parker didn't need to look back to know he was bleeding and hurt. He stumbled another step, then hearing the whistle of the next barrage which was shooting high, over his head towards ... Without further thought Parker threw himself forward and covered Banyan with his body. He did so just in time, while the cultists were using blunt weapons on him, they had less concern for the well being of Banyan, sharp sticks and broken stones pelted his back.

It hurt, it hurt a lot.

"Halt!" the cult leader called out.

Parker turned his head just enough to look behind and see the cult leader gloating. Parker realized the damn equine was enjoying this. "So much for peaceful herbivores!" he thought to himself. Grunting in pain, he bit his tongue rather than say anything to the mad pony, he replied with a glare.

"Such sacrifice, for the colt?" The leader teased. "The Oracle tells us, you're not even a pony! It's not like he's your's, why should you care?"

Parker didn't bother to respond to that nonsense. Though all this talk about an 'Oracle' really was starting to get his goat, somehow they knew he was coming, he had to give the Oracle that much, he knew magic worked in this world, but the rest? Him being willing to work with, even to help, these killers? Parker really wanted to get back at the cult leader with a snappy comeback like 'Your Oracle's crystal ball must be foggy' but while he thought the words, he kept his mouth shut. This was not the time for jokes, he was an explorer, not some sort of wisecracking super hero.

Instead he looked down at the colt and whispered, "Banyan, are you alright?"

The little colt with terrified eyes looked up at him and with a barely perceivable motion nodded once.

Parker whispered, "On three, you run, and you keep running, no matter what. OK?"

Banyan shuddered in fear, but managed to nod again.

Parker whispered "One"

Meanwhile the cult leader continued his rant, "Somehow that foal has fogged your mind! I will end him for this!" The leader switched out with his magic the wooden club, exchanging it back for the knives he used to kill the Mayor.

Parker saw the knives, he knew that he had to jump the Leader first, he wasn't a fighter, but if he could distract the mad pony for even a second, Banyan might have a chance. Trying to keep his whispered voice as confident sounding as possible he said, "Two."

Parker then closed his eyes for an extra long blink to steel himself, then in one smooth motion he bucked out with both his rear legs at the same time as yelling "Three!"

The Cult leader probably had thought Parker was too injured to buck, and in normal terms he probably was, the pain was terrible and it shot down his body like an electric shock. But while there was a lot of blood from the rocks and sticks, there wasn't any damage to the muscles. Parker's kick connected, and connect hard. The Cult leader was flung back, smashing back into several of his followers, the knives lost in the telekinetic grip fell to the ground, lost under the sudden scuffle of hoofs and bodies.

Banyan was up and running, while Parker fell to the ground, that buck was all he had left and he was not going to be able to run. He struggled to his legs and turned towards the cultists, a look of hopeless defiance on his muzzle.

The cult leader was still on his side, breathing hard, the angry look on his face could turn a Cockatrice to stone. "Visitor you will die for that mistake!" he yelled, reaching out once again for his knives with his magic.

Parker stood, ready to die, the whole situation was a mess and he wanted out, he just wanted to stick around long enough to be certain that Banyan got away, then death would be a messy and uncomfortable exit, but not one he had reason to fear. He still had a body waiting for him in his home world, and what if he loses the memories of these last few hours? He didn't care much for them.

The cult leader seemed to pause waiting for a response from Parker, but Parker wasn't going to give him the satisfaction. He stood there waiting, listening and trying to judge by the sound how far Banyan had run. He wanted to give the kid the most possible time to escape.

Then suddenly there was response, but not from Parker. It came from the air, off to the side and came in fast, a streak of multicolored light.

With it came a battle cry, "Yahoo! Gang Way!" a brash nasally voice called.

Suddenly everything was in even more chaos. Purple explosions lit up the sky and cultists were being thrown into the air. There were screams of surprise and shock. Bodies were running every direction.

In front of Parker, one cultist was surrounded by a large bubble of purple magic, lifted suddenly into the air and smashed against a tree, to fall unconscious at the roots.

The Cult Leader gave Parker one last angry look then, taking his knives, ran back into the woods, disappearing into the darkness.

Many of the cultists started fleeing after their leader, though some seemed intent on the fight, a group were going after what they must have seen as the easiest target, Banyan. Parker tried to give chase, but he could barely walk and couldn't possible catch up.

Suddenly Banyan was being lifted away from the crowd of cultists, lifted safely in the hoofs of a Pegasus, a rainbow colored streak taking the colt to safety.

Standing in the mayhem and realizing what he was seeing, Parker said only one word.

"Damn."


	11. Chapter 11

It wasn't a battle, it should not be confused for one. Ponies, the cultists, were running in circles, stomping up dust and debris. Randoms explosions of purple light thundered overhead creating a continuous cacophony of noise and kept anypony from being heard, from giving orders, from taking control of the mayhem. Every few seconds a flash of rainbow light, and suddenly whatever pony that seemed most in command or most ready to attack, would be smashed aside. At no time would the attackers allow themselves to be clearly seen, their quick motion, their noise and thunder, scared the cultists and soon there was no more efforts to fight back, no more efforts to take control. The cultists ran into the woods, to hide under brush and behind trees. Scared of what they couldn't see.

Parker found himself alone, standing in torn up field near the towns center. Thankfully Banyan had been rushed away in one of the early rainbow streaks, at least for now Parker was not worried about the colt, confident he was safe. For a brief time Parker considered running as well, but he had no place to run to. He didn't want to trip across on the cultists, and anyways his injuries wouldn't let him move that fast. He chose to wait, fretting and uncertain.

There were several long beats of time, when he could see no movement. It was oddly peaceful and quiet, the shouting and explosions having died down. Parker looked side to side and stared up into the tree branches, but couldn't see any more sign of the attackers, until suddenly from behind them there was a yell.

"Yahoo! That shows them! No one lays a hoof on Rainbow Danger Dash!"

In a flash of movement, suddenly a Columbia blue Pegasus was right in front of Parker, holding her hooves up in a makeshift victory dance.

"Don't show your dirty hooves here again!" Rainbow continued to taunt the unseen cultists.

Just then a second pony, purple in color and bearing a horn, stepped out of the bushes and admonished the Pegasus, "Rainbow! Don't do that! We just got lucky, they outnumber us and we just startled them. They'll probably be back soon."

Parker looked from one pony to the other. He knew these ponies and while the cultists may have scared him, he had been explicitly warned to stay away from the Mane Six. Should he care? He wasn't sure, he was clearly far off the original mission guidelines.

Twilight turned her attention from Rainbow and towards Parker, "Mr Red Wood? Is that you?" she asked.

Parker felt a strange surge of recognition but couldn't explain the source, it was the first time anyone had used Red Wood's name in front of him, but it was clear Twilight was trying to talk to him. He blinked several times, trying to process the meaning then considering how to answer, finally he told himself. "When the shit hits the fan, and all else fails, then as a last resort try honesty."

Parker nodded to Twilight, "Not exactly but close." Then he paused to confirm, yes this version of Twilight Sparkle had both horns and wings, she was an Alicorn. "Princess."

Twilight looked surprised, "Oh no! I"m sorry, did I miss pronounce it? I know you backwoods ponies sometimes have strong accents, supposed to emphasize the oo sound in the Wood? Princess Celestia didn't say how to pronounce it in her letter, let me get a quill to correct my…" Despite her comment to Rainbow Dash about the Cultists returning, it looked like Twilight was about to take out paper to write notes on.

Suddenly Rainbow shot into into Parker's face, "Wait a feather now! If your not Red Wood, then who are you? Are you one of those cultists? Are you a "

Parker face hoofed and finished for Rainbow Dash, "A Spy?"

Twilight put a hoof on Rainbow's shoulder and pulled her down, "Come on Rainbow, Equestria has very few enemies, why do you keep accusing new ponies of being spies? It a silly thing, you're not going to get a spy to admit he's one, just by asking!"

Parker gave a soft cough, "Actually Twi..um..Princess," he caught himself, from sounding too familiar with what should be a stranger to him. "In this case she's right."

"Whoo! I got one! I got a spy!" Rainbow did a flip in the air excited, "Wait! If you're a spy why did the Princess send us to rescue you?"

"Yes I want an answer about that as well!" Twilight glared at Parker.

Parker held up his hoofs in a calming gesture, "OK I'll tell you everything but first did Banyan get away safe?"

"Oh the colt?" Rainbow nodded, "Yes I have him safely tucked away on a high branch in one of these trees, I'll get him." She was off again in a flash.

Twilight looked over Parker a bit more nervous now, "You're not a changeling are you?"

Parker shook his head, "No, nothing like that. I think we need to get the kid and get out of here, this whole town isn't safe if the cultist come back."

Rainbow was already on her way back with Banyan and had heard the exchange between Twilight and Parker. "Those lame cultists? They were pushovers! We'll scare them off again if they come back!"

Parker bowed his head low, "I'm afraid they are very dangerous pushovers." he stepped a few feet closer to the nearest house and brushed away some dirt and leaves on the ground. Exposing the body of the Mayor. Both Twilight and Rainbow gasped, while Banyan ran over and hid his head against Parker's side. Without thinking about it Parker nuzzled Banyan to comfort the colt.

Twilight knelt by the Mayor's body, her horn glowed for a moment as if she was trying to aid him, but during their panic many of the cultists had stampeded over the body. There was was far too much damage to have hope for him. Tears started pouring down her muzzle. "How could they!" She cried and shook in a way that broke Parker's heart. He still didn't know exactly how close this world was to the TV series and it looked like this world's Twilight Sparkle did not have a lot of first hoof experience with deadly violence.

Rainbow Dashes reaction was much more restrained, she bucked the air in frustration and then glumly asked. "How many?" She gulped then finished in a whisper, "How many dead."

Parker told her, "I don't knew, their leader said something about taking away all the mares and fillies, but he didn't mention the boys, I mean colts and stallions."

Rainbow said, "We'll have to do a house to house search to find them and … oh no, we need more ponies! Somepony has to find out where they took the fillies! You Red Wood, you start searching the houses on that side of town and I'll…"

Wiping away her tears, Twilight stood and said "No! Rainbow, the Princess's orders were clear, we have to get Red Wood and his Son away from here, the flight of Pegasus that are following us will have to do the search."

"Those slowpokes bucket heads with all their heavy armor? We left them far behind! they won't be here for at least an hour, maybe two! Twi! The cultists will get away!"

Twilight took out some paper from her saddlebags and started to write a note,"Sharp Wing is at the head of the Pegasus flight group, I'll pin this note on Red Wood's door where they'll find it and have his team start the search. We'll have to hope the Cultists won't get too far."

"Just one quick search Twi!"

"No Rainbow! The Stone Heart Cultists want Red Wood for some reason and once the cultists realize they outnumber us, they'll be back. Besides, we have to get Red Wood to a doctor, look at all those wounds!" Twilight pointed hoof at Parker's back.

Parker turned his head and was surprised at just how beaten up his back was. The excitement and adrenalin had made him forget his injuries for a few minutes.

Twilight told her multi colored friend, "Don't go far, but find us something these two can fit on for the trip back. If there's no wagons around, you'll have to fetch us a small cloud and we'll use a cloud walking spell."

Twilight came over to Red Wood, and using her magic started cleaning out and closing his wounds. "I know the basic first aid spells, but it's not my specialty, you'll need to see a trained doctor for some of these larger gashes." She told him. When the worse of the bleeding had stopped, and the larger wounds taped up, she added, "We may have gotten distracted, but you're going to explain to me what you meant by 'spy'"

Parker started to speak, but Twilight cut him off. "Not now! After we get out of here, I'm not sure how deep the cultists are into this woods and I don't think we want them to overhear whatever you have to say."

"Will this do Twi?" Rainbow called as she pulled a small git, a two wheeled wagon from the side of the Major's house.

"Thanks Rainbow!" Twilight smiled and gave the wagon a shot of her magic, it floated a few inches off the ground. "Everyone get on board."

With some reluctance Parker climbed into the little wagon and helped Banyan up. There was no real seat, but the floorboard had a weathered cushion and there was enough room for two ponies sit on their hunches.

Twilight adjusted the tack on the git, so Rainbow and her both had room to extend their wings before the junior Alicorn and Pegasus hitched themselves up.

"Hang on to your saddles! Your flying the Rainbow Express!" Rainbow called out loudly, then more quietly nodded towards Twilight "Try to keep up this time Twi."

"I'll try Rainbow, but no more Rainbooms!" Twilight told the Pegasus.

Parker asked, "Rainboom? You both can do rainbooms?"

Rainbow laughed, "Twilight doing a Rainboom! That's rich! No way can princess egghead do a rainboom on her own! But I did one earlier and pulled twilight along, or we would have been here way too late! I would have taken the whole guard flight too, but they all chickened out!"

"Rainbow, you can't pull that many Pegasus along in a Rainboom! You barely could get me though." Twilight objected.

"Could to!" Rainbow objected. "Just had to keep things cool with the guys!"

Parker let his mind wander as the two friends started arguing over how much a show off Rainbow was or wasn't, and turned to Banyan who was looking over the side of the wagon, eyes wide. "First time flying?" He asked. Banyan nodded to him, looking again at the landscape below.

Parker also looked around a bit, though all he could see was miles of unspoiled forest, there were no visible roads or buildings. They were too far from any city to see any sign of civilization, even from this height. Tiredness started overtaking him, the high from the adrenaline was quickly turning into a crash.

Not seeing a reason to stay awake and seeing as a good excuses to avoid any more unwanted questions, he let himself relax and started to drift off to sleep.

As sleep first started taking over, and he was about half way between awake and asleep, he found himself envisioning a large empty white room, the only thing in the room was a standing mirror. In that mirror he saw his reflection and took a moment to examine his new body.

"I got yellow eyes?" He thought to himself, "Wait, I haven't seen a mirror since I awoke, how do I know I have yellow eyes? Wish the Medic AI was here, it could explain things better."

Before he could think of anything else, his reflection seemed to startle and moved on it own reaching out to Parker, "Who are you?" it asked.

It was a measure of how tired Parker was, as this strange behavior didn't waken him, nor did the dream state last long, he settled down deeper into a dreamless stupor without answering his strange reflection.

Back behind them, many miles now, the Leader of the Cultists, stepped out of the bushes and back into the original clearing. He bucked the air several times, and swore like sailor pony. "Drat that fool!" He yelled out, "How could the Visitor be so uncooperative! The Oracle was clear! I know the oracle spell works, it's always works!"

He walked back over the site of his failure several times, he couldn't stay here long, once he spotted the Alicorn and that rainbow feathered obscenity, he knew he couldn't fight them directly. Not with his current group of dolts. The Visitor was going to give him the edge, the power to confront the Alicorns, demand his rightful place of power. Now the Visitor running off with that feathered monster and the Alicorn, probably 'grateful' for being 'rescued', it was so unfair!

On his third ranting pass through the clearing, the leader noticed the glowing red embers on the ground. They were in the outline of a pony laying on the ground.

Curious he picked up a pinch of the dust with his magic. As he lifted it up, it changed color from dull red to a glowing blue.

"Whoa there!" That was the same color light as the 'waterfall of light' was there still some magic in it? Could he somehow use it? He lifted more of the dust up with his magic and more and more of it started to glow brightly.

"Strange it reacts to magic" he said out loud.

"Can I help you?" A voice asked out of the air.

"Who said that?" The Leader asked, surprised.

"I did." A ghostly head started to form in the air in front of the Leader. "I appears you have recharged my power store. I am a medical unit assigned to …"

The face seemed frozen for several seconds, before reanimating. "I appear to have sustained some damage, I can't find my mission files. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be doing here."

The Leader asked "Where did you come from?"

Again the face seemed confused and froze, "I have only partial records left, I came from somewhere else, I was here to help someone, but I can't recall who. I suppose you can call me a visitor from another world. I was injured and lost and you saved me. I am a Doctor perhaps I can help you?"

The Leader blinked several times then broke into a smile, "So you're the Visitor? I am very glad to meet you, my name is Rock Charmer and I think you and I will do great things together."


	12. Chapter 12

Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash where flying back to Fillydelphia, pulling the small git holding Red Wood and his son. Twilight was fretting about leaving the Stone Heart cultists back in Coltsdale without a real clue about what they were trying to do. She knew Princesses Celestia was worried and that was reason enough to rush off on this rescue mission, but the full story was still a mystery to her. Rainbow Dash was equally concerned and was much more direct in her questions.

"So now that we got them, what the hay, is so special about these two?" Rainbow asked Twilight.

Twilight whispered back, "I don't really know, I don't sense anything unusual about either of their magic. Red Wood is supposed to be a craftspony of some skill, his magic strength should be about the same as Rarities, but during that fight, he didn't even try to levitate a pebble or put up even a basic shield."

Just then she was interrupted by a loud 'Snnorkkkaaaa' both winged ponies were jostled by surprise. The whole cart was rattled and jerked about for a moment as they regained their sync.

Turning her neck to look back, Rainbow Dash said with a smirk, "Sorry folk, a little unexpected turbulence! But you gotta expect that when flying the awesome skies with the one and only Rainbow Dash!"

Banyan's eyes were wide and scared looking, having been jostled out of his funk from the sudden motion. He calmed down a bit, when Rainbow winked at him. Parker on the other hand was fast asleep and responded to Rainbow's comment with another loud 'Snnorkkaa' snore.

"Your pop's a sound sleeper, kid?" Rainbow asked Banyan.

Banyan shook his head, "No, he always catches me if I get up at night and try to sneak an extra cookie. I.. I'm not sure he's really alright."

Twilight joined their conversation, "Must have been some day for you. With all those scary ponies around."

"No they weren't so scary, at least not as scary as the ghost." Banyan told them.

"ghost? We didn't see any ghost!" Rainbow replied.

"Rainbow, there's no such things as ghosts, you know that!" Twilight told her. Then turning back to Banyan, "What did you see?"

Banyan closed his eyes, he wasn't sure he wanted to remember, "Daddy was dead and it healed him." He answered hoping she'd drop it.

"Dead!" Rainbow looked at Twilight questioningly.

Twilight tried to sound reassuring, "I know the fight was scary, and your father got a number of cuts on his back, but he's not going to die, the cuts are not that bad."

Banyan sighed, why didn't she understand? "No that fight was later, he died before when the bad pony stabbed him and ran away. There was a lot of blood and then the ghost told me he was dead but he was going to heal him."

Twilight shook her head at Rainbow, "Can't be right, no magic can bring the dead back to life."

Rainbow asked Banyan, "Come on kid, why would the bad pony run away if he already stabbed your pop?"

Banyan told her, "I was hiding in the bushes, and I heard them talk for a long time about somepony they called the Traveler and the Visitor, the bad pony said something about my daddy having to leave his body so the Visitor can come. Then he stabbed daddy in the chest."

Twilight started to frown, "Wait "leave his body" you're talking about possession, that's one of the most controversial schools of magic, even the cultists wouldn't dare? Would they?"

Rainbow eyed the sleeping body or Red Wood, "We better keep an eye on this one Twi."

Twilight nodded, "Agreed Rainbow Dash, though if he is the victim of possession, he not trying to hide it, he basically volunteered the information when we asked. I definitely want to talk to him more when we land."

"Do you think my daddy still in there?" Banyan asked, pointing to the sleeping Red Wood. "The ghost said he would try to save my daddy when I asked."

Twilight told the colt, "Banyan, you're going to have to tell me everything that happened with that ghost. If its anything like magic possession I've read about, it should be reversible, but we'll probably need Princess Celestia's help."

So Banyan tried to tell Twilight everything he could remember about the ghost encounter. He couldn't remember everything word for word, but he was able to give her a general gist of what was said, and she was especially interesting in how the 'ghost' seemed willing to sacrifice itself in an attempt to rescue Banyan's father.

During this whole conversation Red Wood/Parker slept and as the hours rolled past, Twilight started to wonder why his sleep seemed unnaturally deep. She and Rainbow pulled the cart onto a small cloud and tried to shake Red Wood awake, and even then all he did was snore.

"Some spell keeping him asleep!" She told the others, "We need to get him to the hospital in Fillydelphia right away. Rainbow if you have another Rainboom in you, this might be time to try it out."

Rainbow frowned at that, "Sorry Twi, I can't do a Rainboom pulling a cart. Too much drag. But lets take off the extra weight like the cart wheels, I can get us there in two shakes of ponies tail. Just try to keep up, OK?"

"Right Rainbow" Twilight smiled.

Meanwhile deep inside Red Wood/Parker's head, a different conversation was going on.

Parker had at first fell into a deep dreamless sleep, but after a while the natural patterns of sleep started to move him to a lighter more dream filled state, there he found himself once again in the mysterious white room he had briefly passed through.

This time, he was not as exhausted by events, so his mind was sharper and able to realize that this place was not normal. Everything in the room was white on white, but it had sense of solidness that a normal dream construct would lack. The main feature of the room was the standing mirror he had noticed the first time, but there also was some tables and chairs scattered at the edges of the room. On one of these tables Parker spotted a generic brand-less data pad.

Parker was becoming aware that he was in some sort of sleep state, a very realistic lucid dream, so he wondered if the data pad was usable or just a prop for the dream.

He was about reach for it, when from the corner of his eye he spotted movement in the mirror. Remembering the strange behavior of his reflection before, Parker turned to the mirror and looked at the strange pony in it.

"Your back!" the reflection exclaimed.

"What's going on here?" Parker asked, none of this was in the plan.

"I don't know" the reflection replied, "where are we?"

"I'm dreaming. You have to be part of my dream, but this is strange." Parker told the reflection.

"Your dream? I'm not a dream I'm real! What happened to those cultists? Where's Banyan?" The reflection asked urgently.

"Who are you?" Parker asked, already suspecting the answer, but not quite ready to accept it.

"Me? I'm Red Wood, I own a shop in Coltsdale." Red Wood answered, but then turned his head to the side as if trying to get a better look at Parker. "You look a lot like me. Are you one of the guards Princess Luna was sending?"

"Princess Luna? Guard? No, no this is not right! You're not supposed to be here! The Doctor really messed up." Parker sat on his haunches and stared at his mirror opposite.

"Come on! Please you have to tell me, where is my son! How come I'm trapped in here?" Red Wood pleaded.

Parker sighed, "Red Wood, what's the last thing you remember?"

Red Wood thought for a moment, then he remembered the cult leader and his knife. "I think I was stabbed by one of those cultists that Luna warned me about. I must have passed out. How did you find me?"

"Luna warned you? Princess Luna? How?" Parker shook his head, "OK, think, we need to start at the beginning."

"Princess Luna came to me in a dream and warned me that the Stone Heart cult was going after me. Something about them killing my wife ten years ago, except they didn't kill her."

Parker saw Red Woods face fall into an expression of such pain that he reach out to the other pony, but the glass in the mirror was solid and he could only watch as Red Wood started to silently cry. "The cult did something to her, they cut off her horn! I didn't know! I didn't know! And now they got Banyan and I'm hurt and stuck inside this place. I can't help him either can I?"

Parker felt helpless in the face of Red Woods grief. "I'm sorry, I don't know much about what's going on yet, but I can tell you that Banyan's safe, he's with Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash, there taking us to fillydelphia."

Red Woods looked up with hope, "Who? Twilight Sparkle? Isn't that the new Princess? A princesses came to help us?"

Parker thought out loud, "You said Princess Luna somehow knew about the cult? She must have been the one to send Twilight."

"What about you, who are you and why do you look like me?"

"That's a long story, just say that due to a mix-up, you and I are right now sort of glued together. My name is Stewart Parker, and it appears I'm occupying your body."

Red Wood was flabbergasted, "My body! What? How can you be in my body! I'ts mine! And what kind of name is 'Stewart Parker' that doesn't sound equine!"

"For now we seem to be stuck together, and I don't yet understand why, the Doctor who healed your, now our, body was supposed to stick around and tell me what's going on, but it disappeared. Leaving us both in the dark." Parker really didn't want to go into more detail with Red Wood, what was he going to say? Red Wood should have been erased completely, not hanging around in Parker's dreams.

"What now then? How come were stuck in this room? Where is here?" Red Wood asked.

Parker thought about that for a moment, "I think this room is a mental construct probably left here by the Medic, it's too stable and solid to be part of a dream, but I got here by falling asleep. So here is at least partly a dream space. As for my name, it a normal one from where I come from, I'm from outside equestria." Parker decided on not telling Red Wood the full story of him being a different species, "How long have you been in here?"

Red Wood paced around on his side of the mirror, "Its been hours, but I don't know how long. If this is a dream, its more like a nightmare. I wish I could leave, but there's no doors or windows. You said twilight Sparkle was there, helping Banyan, do you think you can talk to her? Perhaps she can split us up?"

Parker shook his head, "I don't know, unless she has a way to magic up a new body, and right now we have two minds and one body. She'll be grilling me with questions when I wake up. Not sure how many I'll be able to answer. Things are really messed up now."

Suddenly there was a shaking and both ponies fell to their respective floors.

Parker said "I think the real world starting to break though, I'll probably wake up soon."

Even as he said this the whiteness of the room grew brighter and brighter, soon it was glaring bright and the room was washed out. "Here I go!" Parker thought to himself.

Outside in the 'real' world, a nurse was just tucking Parker/Red Wood into a clinic bed. The doctor on duty had inspected the unicorn's back and after complimenting Twilight Sparkle with her first aid work, finished repairing the remaining injuries. He also told the two element of harmony that unusually deep sleep was probably due to blood loss and nothing to worry about, yet. So Twilight and Rainbow had taken Banyan to a waiting room while the nurses finished up with Parker/Red Wood. They were putting him to bed to sleep off the remaining effects of the fight.

Just as his head hit the pillow though, his eyes opened and he startled awake.

"Where am I!" Red Wood saw the nurse, "Please nurse! Where is my son?"

Deep inside the Unicorn's mind, Parker looked around and found himself still inside the white room. Now the sole occupant.

"Uh Oh, not good."


	13. Chapter 13

Parker looked around, one moment he had been talking to Red Wood, and the next he was alone. The room was just as blank and uninteresting as it had been before. Contemplating what this meant, Parker walked around the space, looking now for clues about it's nature.

"This is definitely not a dream, the Doctor must have made it, and it was a rush job by the look of it." Parker mused to himself. He bent closer to one of the few pieces of furniture in the room, a white on white table. He realized that white on white would better be called 'un textured' the furniture was made of geometric primitives, a very low rez mesh and the only reason he could even see it at all was the lighting model of this simulation was just smart enough to highlight and contrast edges. At least the image of his own body was at full resolution, but that was probably because the Doctor had to make a full map when rewiring his brain into this body.

He glanced down at his body, then up at the mirror again, this time it was just a reflection and not Red Wood in the mirror. It really was the first chance he had to look himself over since the transport.

"Hmm looks sort of like the show ponies, at least in outline, details are all, well more organic. At bit closer to the uncanny valley than I expected. Eyes are much smaller, larger than human, but not the pie plates from the show." He looked down at his underbody, "Definitely a male body, didn't think about that before, but I guess I lucked out. Though don't really know what the odds were until I learn more, can't be sure if that gender imbalance seen in the early seasons, apply here as well."

He looked a bit closer, "OK, that answers one question. Public nudity is definitely a cultural thing, the theories about internal sheaths and the tails providing adequate modesty can't be right. There is no way I can swish that tail to completely cover that."

He then looked at his legs and hoofs. He'd been using them, walking and running, by grace of the borrowed instincts. "The legs and hoofs are not really equine like at all. Much too thick compared to earth ponies, fat and extra muscles make the legs thicker, more tube like, with earth equines you see the bone and joints right through the leg hide. These legs are more like the show's, each joint seems to be ridiculously flexible, no way to lock them either, so I doubt these ponies can sleep standing up. Also they are probably not as fast runners are earth equines. Though I bet they probably could still outrun humans."

"Hmm, the joints really don't line up the way earth mammals do. Very different joints, the lower part of the leg is not just an extended finger, that last joint really is more of wrist, I can bend it every which way. Hmm the hoof itself is much more complex than an earth horse, I think I feel tendons going back to the mid leg from there."

He picked up and looked at the hoof closely. "Ahh, so the frog is much softer and more flexible I have some muscle control and can pull it in and out and bend it. The Doctor mapped it to how I imagine my thumb moves. The hard layer is much thinner, and broken in segments, it is horseshoe shaped but I can squeeze the tips together. I can see why Rarity pricked herself in one of the shows with a needle, most of base is skin, thick and calloused but only the edge is hard keratin."

Parker experimented a bit and realized the extra muscles and changes to the hoof design allowed him to grip things, the grip itself wasn't very dexterous, all fine motion had to come from the wrist but it was clear he could hold onto things that could fit between the hoof's opening. It was a bit strange and limited compared to fingers, but obviously it was sufficient to explain how the ponies had become builders and tool users.

"I'm not sure if earth like evolution is even active here, but on earth, equines are all about speed and running to escape predators, here I guess they learned to throw stones and use club to defend themselves but unlike humans stayed herbivores."

Again Parker wished again that the Doctor had remained, it was supposed to make all the scientific observations and let Parker manage the goal planning. He turned away from the mirror and spotted another table on the far side of the room, on it was something he had observed when he first arrived in the room but had forgotten about when Red Wood's reflection had caught his attention. There was a data pad on that table.

Parker walked over to the device and looked it over. Like the furniture, it looked like a rush job, shaped like the antiquated apple Ipads but lacked any branding. Parker let it lay on the table and taped it carefully with his hoof.

Instantly it lit up and showed two question mark icons. There was no sign of any of the other tools or setting controls one would expect on a real data pad. Under the icons were two simple text labels, one read 'notes' the other was 'medical report'.

Parker tapped the one labeled 'notes' first. It opened up into a notepad application, it only had save and exit options on its one tiny menu, voice input, but with no options for spell check or formatting, as primitive an app as he had ever seen. But Parker barely noticed this as there was a note for him at the top of the file.

To: Sir

From: Medical Unit.

Subject: Apologies.

Sir Parker,

As I'm sure you are aware by now, our mission has become compromised. I found myself unable to complete my original instructions according to the mission guidelines, do to conflicts with my 'do no harm' directive.

Looking back at my log, I can see where I made a fatal mistake, I saw the presence of a convenient dead body, just a few meters from our entry portal, as a lucky coincidence and started the repair and transfer process before assuring that there was no one with legal claim to the body in the area. In addition my range sensors failed to detect a young cult who appears to be a direct relative to the deceased in the area, why this failed will need to be investigated for future missions, but for now we must deal with the current situation.

The Pony identified as 'Banyan' was the only responding authorized party, and gave me instructions to 'save his father', the data link back through the portal has proven unusable and I was unable to get an overriding instruction, so I compromised.

I have tried to follow my conflicting orders as best as I can. Unfortunately my resources were limited and I had to consume all available nano devices in order to complete this task. As of now, your brain image and the subject known as 'Red Wood' are sharing the same bio hardware. I have put in some protection layers so your two minds will not become mixed. Due to the nature of biological neural nets this separation is not perfect and you will experience some memory leakage. As well, only one of you will be able to operate the physical body at a time. I have rigged up this simulation room for the detached mind to be able to rest in and communicate with the other mind. There should be a functional display device in the middle of the room, with some practice it should allow you to observe and hear the external world. With additional practice you should also be able to send simple emotions and short messages to the other mind though this interface. Longer and more informative communication will only be possible when you are both in early rapid eye movement stages of sleep. You should also be able to switch out which of your two minds have control of the body after each sleep cycle.

I wish I had more time to explain all the details or communicate directly with you, but I already have dangerously exhausted all my spare resources.

Unfortunately along with the medical resources I contained, I also have had to consume all the spare parts that was earmarked for reopening the portal for our return trip to Earth. I do not know how these can be replaced. Unless you can find a way to recharge the energy store in my pool of nanites, I do not see how we will be able to communicate in the future.

Good luck sir, if you find a way to reopen the portal, please send a copy of my medical notes back to Earth, as I do not think I'll be able to submit the report myself.

Medical Unit, Pony World Penetration Mission.

End of Text

Parker reread the letter twice, then sat on the floor quietly, not letting himself think. He had assumed if things failed, he'd be, well just dead, not alive and trapped. He also wasn't sure how he felt about the Doctor, it clearly had given it 'all' for his sake, and if the Doctor had been human it would have been a praise worthy self sacrifice, but on the other hand the whole problem was due to the Doctor's limited ability to deal with conflicting instructions. If it was a medical or neurological question, the Doctor was a super genius, but everything else and he was just a tad more capable than a toddler.

This was a disaster of the worst type, total failure had of course been considered, but that just assumed that the nanites wouldn't work in the alternative physics of this world, the idea that the nanites would work and his mind uploaded successfully but unable to return home, was just skimmed over as too unlikely. Now Parker considered, was there a chance of rescue? Not really, at least not soon. It wasn't as if they would be worried about him, they had a copy of his memories in storage, and could clone a new brain for his human body at anytime. Once the mission is declared a failure, that's exactly what they'll do. Back on earth he'll wake up, with no memories of what happened here and no idea that he was awake and aware on this side. Though they'll hold that off as long as the budget lets them. They wouldn't expect the Doctor to find a suitable morgue or subject for a month or more. But then they were expecting him to create a beacon to signal and aid them. With out nanties to build one they will have to do all the very expensive work of re-opening the portal from earth side. That meant a full budget cycle, the energy cost and money was tight, there's a real chance that a rescue would never be attempted.

After a few minutes of self pity, Parker glanced at the Doctor's medical log, most of it was written in a sort of code that other medical AI's would understand, but there was periodic summary headers that were more human readable. No that helped him much, he really didn't care about differences in blood chemistry and oddities in the ponies gallbladders. A few things did stand out as curious but only in the most general sense of the word.

Seems the Doctor was convinced the Ponies DNA showed signs of it being engineered, some repeating patterns in the 'junk DNA' seemed suspect. Also being that the Doctor's specialty was neurological it had long notes and comments about how the brain seemed to fuse with the base of the unicorn horn, speculating on how the horn was acting as an antenna mostly for transiting electrical waves. The Doctor had no explanation how these waves would turn into the magical effects associated with Unicorns. It would take many times the resources than the Doctor possesed to even propose experiments on that subject. Parker wondered briefly about that, he of course, now had a horn, but no idea how to use it.

In the very last few chapters of the Doctor's notes, there was some comments about the mapping of two minds inside the same brain, and how he created the 'waiting room' he was currently in. Mixed in with the technical jumbo was a handful of keywords and commands available to the control the 'mirror' and to send short messages through to Red Wood.

Looking back at the mirror Parker considered, "What am I going to tell him? Congratulations you were supposed to be dead, but now that you're alive, you got a permanent live in roommate? Right, he'll go running off for an exorcism and being that magic works here, it might succeed. Worse part is, I'm not sure he'd be in the wrong for that."

Parker kept staring at the mirror, uncertain what to do next.


	14. Chapter 14

Twilight sparkle was in an office the Director of the Fillidelpha's Penstable Hospital lent her, she and rainbow dash were putting the final touches on a letter to Princess Celestia about the strange events from the previous night. Well, to be honest, Twilight was writing the letter while Rainbow was sleeping on top of one of the offices bookcases. Periodically Twilight would forget Rainbow was asleep and direct a question towards the Pegasus who would reply with a clear and we'll thought out answer of 'Zzzzzz' or sometimes punctuated with a clarification of 'Snorkkkaa" which Twilight would faithfully record with her quill pen.

A short while before, one of the hospital orderlies had dropped by and gave the princess a telegram from Ponyville. The rest of her friends including Spike would soon arrive there by train. Twilight was ecstatic about the news as Spike's fire breath was the fastest way to get news to Celestia and she was anxious to talk to her fellow princess about the fight in Coltsdale.

Twilight was far more disturbed than she wanted to let on, in all the years of facing danger for Equestria, the threat of death may have been real, but the actual violence she had to deal with rarely escalated above a few bruises. Even the war with the changelings had resulted in mostly abrasions and a few broken bones at worst. But these Cultists, these both new and ancient villeins of the Stone Heart Cult, had murdered a pony in cold blood and left the body in the dirt. Twilight shuddered once again with the memory. She then glanced out the window of the office, looking if there was any sign of returning Pegasuses, they still hadn't heard any news back from the guards left in Coltsdale, and didn't know if the remaining males of the town had been found, alive or not.

Twilight turned her eyes to the sleeping rainbow dash and briefly felt jealous of her friends apparent ability to put the horror behind her and sleep at a time like this. Twilight's jealousy was misplaced, Rainbow was dealing with the same imagery in her dreams. Dreams that started with the gruesome remains they had both witnessed and compounded it with details drawn from the Pegasus preferred entertainment of adventure stories and horror films.

While Twilight could only speculate about what was going on in Rainbows head, anther Princess of Equestria was not so lucky. Princess Luna stood to the side of the dream space of the rainbow Pegasus, or in this case nightmare. With some contrition she tried to draw the attention of Rainbow from her own dreams, but even the Royal Canterlot Voice was a poor distraction from the hordes of bloody Zompomies and dark shadows of undefined but monstrous danger that filled the rainbow mares mind. Once or twice Luna had gotten Rainbow to look in her direction but the fear was too real and the danger too recent, there was no recognition and no lucidity. Luna realized that the brave shell Rainbow wore in the waking world, was not there when the mare was alone in the darkness of her mind.

Luna with a sigh of frustration realized she could not help here, Rainbows nightmare was a coping mechanism and had to run its natural course or she would never be able clear her mind of the fear. Resolving to return later, to see if Rainbows dreams would calm down, she instead expanded her dream senses to detect other dreamers in the area. It was daytime now, but some ponies dreamed at all hours in a hospital. With some luck, she could perhaps learn news.

Dreamwalking and physical space had different geometries. There was no way that Luna could tell if a dreamer was on particular floor or room, the minds she sensed were like bubbles in a flowing sea, hospitals were not her favorite place to dream walk, yet she found herself in such places frequently, a duty as an immortal she owed to her short lived subjects. Looking back and forth there were as always a handful of patients sleeping, but Luna was hoping for a hospital staffer, someone taking a nap after a double shift, with some luck she could send, through them, a message.

It was then that Luna spotted something odd. A most peculiar dreamer, instead of a light and organic bubble, it was a box, or a tower, full of sharp lines and mechanical ideas. It stood out, no pony Luna had ever met dreamed like that.

Luna approached and wondered what sort of creature would have dreams as stiff as clockwork. She spun around the thing and wondered for a long time uncertain if it would be safe to enter this alien dream space.

But wasn't she the Princess of the Night! It was her duty to protect her subjects from such strange goings on. Her mind made up, she phased in the dream.

A moment later she found herself in a white room facing a familiar face.

"Ah Red Wood! We..eh I have found you!"

Parker turned from the mirror he was inspecting and seeing Princess Luna, he just face hoofed.

Parker shook his head and quietly said in a deadpan voice, "Stay away from the Mane Six, Stay away from Ponyville, leave the diplomacy to trained diplomats who'll follow you. Just watch from the outskirts, your an engineer to fix the gateway, not an explorer. That's what they told me." He sighed, "OK hello, Princess Luna, I guess there's no point is saying 'take me to your leader.'"

Confused Luna demand, "Explain yourself!"

And so Parker started to do just that.

Soon after Luna had left Rainbows dream space, a nurse knocked on the office door. Startling both the Alicorn and awakening the Pegasus, for Twilight that was just a case of her smudging some ink on her growing notes, Rainbow on the other hoof had fallen from the top shelf and failed to remember her wings before she hit the floor with a crash.

"Rainbow! Are you alright?" Twilight asked her companion.

"I meant to do that?" Rainbow sheepishly replied, as she shook the last of her sleep from her chromatic head. It had hardly been a restful sleep, but it had helped.

The nurse paused only for a moment to assess the damage and then seeing nothing serious, said "I'm sorry Princess, and you too Lady Dash, but I thought you would want to know, the patient is awake."

Twilight and Rainbow both asked at the same time, "Is he alright?"

"He appears to be healthy but a bit confused. I'll let the doctor explain more." The nurse told them as she started to lead the two friends to the recovery room.

There is some peculiarity about large and old Hospitals, perhaps it was some reflection of the natural magic of Equestria and fact that souls both check in, and check out, inside Hospital walls. But you can never really be sure how long it will take you to walk from one place to another. In general, maps are useless. The most direct route will always be closed off, for cleaning, for security, for no good reason. To get to the room on the other side of an adjacent wall, may certainly require leaving the current building via a skybridge and through several other buildings then after walking the equivalent of four city blocks, entering the original building by a basement passage before climbing up two stories for each one you old Fillydelphia hospital was no exception to this, still with the guidance of the nurse It took them only fifteen minutes to walk the to the secure ward where Red Wood/Parker was recovering in, perhaps it had only felt longer.

Once they got close to the door, Rainbow Dash, well, dashed into the room first.

"OK Spy! No more nice mare! We want answers, and we want them now!" She yelled at the bed, before even looking down.

Red Wood and Banyan looked up in surprise. Banyan had managed to get to the room first, and he and his father had already been talking for several minutes when the blue flying mare interrupted them.

"What!" Red Wood cried, "Who are you?"

Banyan, knew who Rainbow was of course, but just glared angrily at being interrupted by the shout.

"Calm Down, Rainbow" Twilight told her marefriend as she more calmly strolled into the room.

Twilight then directed her attention to Red Wood, "Sir, while Rainbow Dashes approach was excessive, her basic question is still valid. Yesterday you said several questionable statements, and now that you're no longer in physical danger, I think it would be most appropriate for you to expand on your declarations."

Red Wood tried to follow the question, he really did, but his head was still spinning from confusion and shock. So he most elegantly replied. "Huh?"

Twilight sighed and tried again, "Sir, what did you mean yesterday when you agreed with Rainbow Dash that you are a spy."

"A Spy! Who are you to call me a spy!" Red Wood snarled, then he looked a bit closer.

"What? WIngs and a horn. oh my Celestia! You're that new Princess, uhh Princess Tiggy Farkel I mean Twilight Farkle, no I mean, we were just talking about you, my head is still foggy…"

"Her name is Twilight Sparkle!" Rainbow corrected Red Wood. "Hey wait a minute! You knew her at first sight yesterday!"

Red Wood looked confused, "Yesterday? I've never seen you before! I met Princess Luna in a dream, but that's the first time I ever met any of the Princesses."

While Twilight and Rainbow looked to each other in confusion, Banyan instead jumped on the bed and (in a frankly cute way considering he is still just a preteen colt) stared him straight eye to eye. "Are you Mr Parker or my daddy?"

The colt asked him this question with such seriousness that for a moment Red Wood was speechless. "Parker? that stranger that looked like me, called himself Parker." Then realizing he hadn't answered his son's absurd question, "Banyan, I'm your father, don't you know me?"

"Daddy!" Banyan wrapped his hoofs around Red Wood's neck in a choke hold, "The ghost didn't lie! You're alive! You're you!"

Twilight was certainly confused but she also realized that she probably should have debriefed Banyan before now. The colt seemed to know more than anypony else about what was going on. "Mr Red Wood? What is a 'Parker'?"

Red Wood and Banyan exchanged glances, "I think you already met him, he and I exchanged only a few words in passing before I awoke here."

"Whoa now!" Rainbow interrupted, "You're saying you have multiple ponyalities! I got this Twi! In Daring Do and the secret of the Trottingham Ripper, there was this mad scientist guy that had a split personality! By day he was this nice dentist that had a real neat collection of teeth, but by night he was the dreaded Peach Heart the RIpper!"

Twilight dead panned "Peach Heart the Ripper? Wouldn't it sound scarier with something like Dark Lord or Death Bringer or something short if weird like Jake?"

Rainbow just gave Twilight a blank stare, "Who ever heard of pony named 'Dark Lord'? Hmm come to think of it, Ponies rarely have decently scary names. But Twilight that's not the important part! Red Wood here must be suffering from a Split Ponyality!"

Twilight blinked a few times at Rainbow then shook her head to clear it. "Daring Do books are not exactly qualified medical journals, and I don't think real Dissociative Identity Disorder, is nothing like the fictional counterpart, but you might have a point."

Red Wood asked "Wait! You're thinking I sick in the head? I mean there been some confusing things happening and some of its scary, but I don't think…."

Twilight ignored Red Wood's protest and turned to the Nurse, "Can I get a Echothatologic Kygrimoire Genucordacon in here?"

The nurse who had been standing way clear of the conversation up to this point, just asked, "We have several but we'll need a doctor's order and get a technician to operate it."

Twilight smiled at that, "Oh I have a few doctorates by now, true there mostly honorary but still legally binding, so my word should do." She shrugged her wings and held her horn high, "Besides I think I qualify as official on other grounds as well?"

"Right, Princess, I will ask one of the ER doctors to come up to operate the EKG." The nurse turned to leave.

"No don't bother, just roll the machine in here, I don't want to inconvenience an ER doctor, beside I used to build them when I was an undergraduate at old CSGU and I'm fully qualified to operate it."

The nurse gave the princess a skeptical look but with a small bow, turned to get the device from the floor storage room.

Rainbow asked, "Hey Twi not to doubt you, but You really know how to operate this doohickey?"

"I have one in the library basement, that's what I hooked Pinkie Pie up to when I was trying to figure out Pinkie Sense."

Looking a little shifty, Rainbow hovered lower to whisper to Twilight "Ehh, that didn't exactly work out for you, did it?"

"Oh Rainbow Dash, don't worry I've learned a lot since then. I'm sure there will be no problem."

The nurse brought in the device, which was much sleeker looking and had many more dials and controls than Twilights homemade version. But that didn't stop the determined Alicorn from hooking up Red Wood to the machine and starting it up. There was a few beeps from a steam whistle on the side of the main console and graph paper started spilling on the floor.

Twilight read the graphs,"Interesting, I'm seeing an odd extra line here, there does seem to be two minds operating in there! But I can't really separate the two images at this power level. I better increase it". Twilight set her horn alight and shot some more magic into the device.

"OK now it clearer, definitely a second mind is operating!" Twilight rather impolitely knocked on Red Wood's noggin. "Hmm, still something blurry here, like the pen trying to filter more noise out. I'm going increase the power again."

Her horn started to glow again, when the nurse interjected "Wait, you're an Alicorn and the most powerful mage in Equestria, the machine's not rated for your full power!"

Twilight laughed "Don't worry, I know what I'm doing!" though her facial features were starting to take on the expressions of 'manic' as she was intent on getting to the bottom of this mystery. She blasted the machine with a full load of her magic charge.

The meter started to smoke and the speed of the pen increased so it was more burning images into the paper rather than laying ink. Twilight didn't mind that though, she was reading the graphs and laughing. "Three, yes Three minds are in there! Wow this third one is powerful! Strange, I'd say it was an Alicorn...I wonder what that means?"

Suddenly there were sparks and black smoke, rainbow colors ran back up the leads, sending magic deep into Red Woods body. He spasmed a few times, knocking Banyan to the floor while crying out, as if in shock.

"Oh No! Oh No!" Twilight pranced nervously in place, as she backed down the power, "Please be alright! Please be alright!"

Everyone turned towards Red Wood, who sat up in the bed and looked around in confusion.

There was a long pause as everyone in the room waited for Red Wood to respond. It took a moment as he clearly was having trouble clearing his vision, then with a gasp as if uncertain how to move his tongue correctly, he managed to spit out the words "Twilight Sparkle!"

Everyone let out a relieved sigh, he appeared to be alright, then Red Wood continued, his voice gaining confidence and volume, indeed quite a lot of volume. "Twilight Sparkle, we demand you explain the meaning of this! How did we arrive in the strange room, this is definitely not my quarters in Canterlot!"

With a cry of shock and recognition of the Canterlot royal voice both Rainbow Dash and Twilight screamed "Princess Luna!?"


End file.
